The Narmada River in India is a goddess, according to Hinduism. To some, the river is considered the daughter of Shiva, formed by his perspiration as he performed penance on Mount Riksha. To others, the river was formed by the teardrops of Brahma, creator of the universe. It is also the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, the two Indian states it flows through.
On the banks
of Narmada, Isha sits on a swing and reads, dreaming of escaping the family
farm to become a scientist and “see the world how it really is”. But with her
father estranged, her mother Nirmala cannot afford for her daughter to leave to
pursue her dream, though she wants Isha to have more than she was given as a
child.
Isha
complains that nothing ever changes around here and her mother describes the ever-moving
river, the growing trees and the wildlife stalking the forest. Nothing in this
place is frozen, except this young girl’s dream of the future.
Just as
Isha accepts she might have to bend toward the earth and serve this land as her
family has done for generations, a woman appears with an offer and a gift. Lakshmi
has a plan for Nirmala to change her crops; proffering bags of maize, along
with pesticides and fertilizer. The Americans need as much corn as they can
get, to feed their cattle and produce all the high fructose corn syrup they can
dream of.
Lakshmi
will also pay for Isha to go to any university in the world she wishes to
attend. Mother and daughter cannot look past what they both might gain from the
mysterious stranger. But progress comes with its own drawbacks, catastrophic
for the land and for their relationship.
S.
Shakthidharan’s The Wrong Gods – four characters, two scenes, ninety
minutes – is worlds away from his previous three-hour, multi-generational,
large cast epics, Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea.
Not that his work here is narrower in its ambition; his work has a lot to say
about capitalism and tradition, old Gods and new.
Construction
on the Sardar Sarovar Dam began in 1987 and for decades since it has been argued
to be a kind of environmental saviour because of the waters used for irrigation
and as a place to generate power. But it has also been controversial because of
the displacement of hundreds of thousands of local residents, who were
initially only compensated for that first season’s lost crops. It’s estimated
that the many dams along the Narmada River have displaced nearly 11 million
people over the past four decades.
This
history, along with the formation of Narmada Bachao Andolan (“Save the Narmada
River”) group, is the inspiration for Shakthidharan’s new play, which he co-directs alongside Hannah Goodwin.
When Isha
returns to the Narmada Valley years later, she is accompanied by Lakshmi and
they are dressed in suits, a startling contrast to the more traditional
clothing in the first half of the play. They have arrived to warn Isha’s mother
that she must leave her home and her land, because the dam being built nearby
is threatening to flood a larger area than originally planned for. In the
intervening years, Nirmala has become firm friends with Devi, who was once Isha’s
teacher and is now an activist, in the early days of a group formed to fight
back against the damaging progress instigated by Western multinationals.
Much of the
second half of The Wrong Gods is dedicated to back-and-forth arguments
about what is best for the future of this valley and India. It is
didactic and weighed down by exposition. Foreign intervention is “the wrong God”
for Nirmala. Adherence to tradition is “the wrong God” for Isha. And Lakshmi is
convinced of her righteousness so much, she thinks of humans as the new Gods,
ready to remake the Earth as they see fit.
The balance
between a fable – the Devil tempts a young woman with power she can never have,
and a history lesson, leads to odd tonal shifts. In a moment of epic power
struggle, when thunder and lighting strike, and heavy rains start to fall,
mother and daughter attack each other with machetes. As a moment in a myth, it
plays beautifully. As a moment in an exploration of mother-daughter conflict,
it comes off as unbelievable.
I admit
that I didn’t know about this particular story of environmental devastation in India and the
displaced people brought about by internal political decisions driven by a
desire to grow exponentially like the West. As Devi explains, there is no way
for India to consume like the West consumes. Their fate is to produce for the
West, not be like them. Because I didn’t know this specific history, I filled
in the gaps with knowledge of China turning into the manufacturer of the world
and India being saddled with call centres that we don’t want here. Stories of
colonisers using land in foreign countries for their own needs is a tale as old
as time.
Keerthi
Subramanyam’s set – concentric rings that evoke a kind of natural amphitheatre –
is striking and her selectively colourful costumes contrast beautifully with
the browns of the backdrop. Steve Francis’ sound design is lyrical, gently
placing us in that verdant valley. And when nature starts to kick up in fury, Francis’
work crackles alongside Amelia Lever-Davidson’s full-bodied
lighting design. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s music is wonderfully moody.
Radhika
Mudaliyar (as Isha) and Nadie Kammallaweera (as Nirmala) draw a beautiful portrait
of parent and child early on and Isha’s return is powerful enough to shake her
mother and shock the audience. There’s a richness of performance that
transcends the text, which unfortunately trades in traditional family conflict
cliches. The specificity of the situation is traded in for a disappointing universality and the characters of Devi and Lakshmi are mouthpieces for
ideas rather that fully fleshed-out characters.
Having read
about the inspiration for this play after seeing the show last night, I wish
the writer had leaned more into exposing this real-life disaster to Western
audiences. Not because he has a duty to educate us, but because this epic conflict
and the rise of a protest movement led by women feels like a better grounding to me.
Right now, the story rests on a kind of false dichotomy; traditional farmers
who believe in the old Gods versus city-dwellers who only believe in
capitalism. Perhaps that works if this show is only a myth, but it also strives
to be about the modern world and languishes somewhere inbetween.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The Wrong
Gods is playing at
the Arts Centre as part of Rising, for the Melbourne Theatre Company and
Belvoir
Photographs: Brett Boardman
Comments