Winner of the JMK Young Directors Award for 2024, Adam Karim’s raw revival of Rajiv Joseph’s play is certainly ideally suited to the intimate confines of the Orange Tree where a work of such visceral intensity makes maximum impact.
Running at the Orange Tree Theatre until 16 November.
OUR VERDICT
Set in Agra, India in 1648, it’s a punchy, darkly humorous two-hander, revolving around a pair of Imperial guards protecting the newly built Taj Mahal on Roisin Jenner’s starkly effective stage set which places a tall central pole on a platform as the setting.
One guard is a taciturn believer in upholding the status quo, the other more of a chatty dreamer, envisaging the time of space flight and other future inventions. As the play progresses the men’s friendship—and sanity – is tested by events unfolding around them.
There are gruesome consequences as personal loyalties are tested and appalling decisions made within a strictly hierarchical, conformist environment.
Karim has noted that despite its historical setting this is not a period piece, rather a play intended to offer a dramatic mirror for contemporary reflection about all the competing forces within our society. In an interesting programme note, Karim thanks audiences for attending a theatre performance, a medium he believes offers one of "our last collective experiences as a society".
"As capitalism drives us towards increasingly solitary existences, storytelling reduced to quick twenty second swipes, the significance of these shared moments becomes ever more resonant."
It’s certainly rich food for thought.
The play is effectively asking at what cost does capitalism advance and is mankind juggling its priorities correctly?
As Karim defines it,
“in the race for Life do we pause to appreciate Beauty?".
The battle for a nation’s soul is the central tenet of Joseph’s play. Whilst I found the debate both interesting and pertinent, the play’s implicit brutality (based on myths surrounding the Taj Mahal’s construction) proved very distracting.
I felt there could be subtler, more engaging ways surely to make the same valid point. Notwithstanding, both actors are excellent, and the audience most appreciative so clearly Karim’s production is making an impact.
Orange Tree Theatre
1 Clarence Street, Richmond, TW9 2SA
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Monday 12pm - 6pm Tuesday 12pm - 6pm Wednesday 12pm - 6pm Thursday 12pm - 6pm Friday 12pm - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 6pm Sunday Closed
