This is a surprisingly fascinating piece.
The story it tells is very gentle. (I use the word story but, apparently, it’s non-fiction.)
Written by Sonal Moore, and directed by Neel Banerjee, the conceit is that the playwright has gathered her two adult children so that their grandparents can tell them about their migration to Australia from India. Interpolated between the conversations happening in something like the present are flashbacks to the 1960’s.
All the members of this family are played by actors, which might seem an incredibly odd thing to mention – except for the fact that this is a documentation of a real family history and the majority of the participants in this history are still with us. (Moore is played by Shabnam Tavakol, her two adult children by Karina Bracken & Madhullikaa Singh, and their grandparents by Taufeeq Ahmed Sheikh & Reema Gillani.)
I say the piece is surprisingly fascinating because it really shouldn’t work. After all, it doesn’t have the allure of narrative. There’s tender humour but little real tension. In literary terms, it’s a simple recount: the sort of thing listened to by polite friends or obliged family members. (The second of these being exactly who has been asked to pay attention to their grandparents in the scenes to which we are audience.)
Yes, the production could probably do with a bit more pace and sometimes the performers with a bit more vocal projection, but gradually, like the playwright’s two adult children, we’re drawn in – not by gawdy theatrics or attention seeking histrionics, but by the quiet, plain, unassuming Truth. This history, or one like it, is shared by so many Australians. We’re seduced by the piece’s mundanity, and if that sounds like a bad thing, I’d assert the world would gain enormously from learning to listen in quiet to the quiet. It’s not only how we’ll discover our shared humanity, it’s how we’ll further enrich it.
Paul Gilchrist
Ten Years to Home by Sonal Moore
Presented by Nautanki Theatre in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre
At KXT until 5 Oct
Image by Kamal Khajuria
Theatre Red 