Jeffrey Marshall's review:
Two superb actors, three sets of characters, I think, although one (played by Marlon G.Day) existed in two incarnations, before and after he was touched by madness.
The satirical short story which originally inspired this play involved an exchange of lunatics between recently partitioned states, India & Pakistan.
But the aspect of this play I found most touching was that we were shown the process by which a Hindu man, losing his new Muslim wife in a terrible act of ethnic violence, is driven mad.
The writing was tender, subtle & clever.
It wasn't a short play at an hour and a half, including interval, but it seemed to last no time at all.
Only the staging, where the Muslim bride dies, lacked the necessary force.
Perhaps Sonia Kaur should have retreated offstage and allowed us to imagine the violence of this scene using only sound effects.
My review:
It wasn't weird and boring at all (as I feared it might have been) and there were no longeurs. The dialogue was natural and didn't feel "written".
Marlon Day was charismatic and undeniably fanciable, with his gym-sculpted body of ebony, so making him change on stage was an excellent idea. He played the madman with effortless authenticity whose girlfriend raped and murdered during Partition.
It was an excellent idea to have a non-Asian male actor, thus universalising the theme of ethnic violence.
There were also unexpectedly topical references to Koran-burning. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68709M20100908
Jeffrey confided in that he was a little nervous of being outed during the progress of the play by the UAF as a BNP member (as has been known to happen).
But he is no longer important enough for that sort of entourage.
Anyway, it was all very civilised, with Akkas shaking our hands and thanking us for coming.
His plan was to deny that he was a member (because he has been suspended), and to out me who is still a member and not important enough (at the moment) to be suspended.
A number of prominent Muslims were there on first night. At any rate we recognised two from the Baitul Futuh in Morden.
The pain of Partition clearly lives on in the memory of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus who killed each other with such enthusiasm during that painful time, and will probably only fade when a national entity called "Pakindia" or "Indistan" comes into existence.
Jeffrey quite reasonably asked:
'Why couldn't they just have Muslims to the Left and Hindus to the right, without killing each other?'
The dialogue was naturalistic and authentically in the English vernacular. There were no Asian accents except when the Sonia Kaur (who played the female characters) was referring to an oppressive character called Fatimah whose accent she imitated, which was Asian.
I did not meet Erica Miller, the director who directed with such unintrusive economy and who treated me to the sight of Marlon Day undressing in front of me.
All in all an excellent cultural excursion (as Jeffrey described it), the theme of thwarted nationhood and the ethnic violence that could result from such a project a salutary one for everyone of all races.
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