“HOW life can change in one day!”, laments one of the unfortunate characters in this compelling retelling of Rohinton Mistry’s novel.
Since the character in question has just seen his best friend castrated, and has just been given an involuntary vasectomy himself, his thesis is hard to quibble with.
But the pleasure of Tamasha Theatre Company’s adaptation is in the steady, gentle tone it uses to evoke a dark period in India’s recent history. True to its more opulent source material, it tells a grim tale with wit, warmth and a keen eye for the join between public policies and private lives.
Mistry’s story follows characters affected by the mid-1970s regime of Indira Gandhi. A stiff-lipped young widow, Dina Dalal, her student lodger and the two tailors she hires to work in her flat-cum-sweatshop live under the nation’s State of Emergency. Slum clearance, forced sterilisation and work camps are everyday facts of life. And then there are the usual pressures: brutal landlords, disapproving families and substandard stitching.
The action unfolds on a sparsely decorated set overlooked by a giant portrait of Mrs Gandhi. Scenes play slowly, seemingly conversationally at first, as the local men congregate and the legless beggar plies his shrill trade. A puppet dog, operated on two poles by an unashamedly visible master, pads around.
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But the apparent casualness harbours a taut tale in which little goes to waste. Yes, there are some moments in the first act when knots of exposition — ladled-on lines about the Emergency — stick out. But, in condensing a 600-page novel to two hours, Tamasha has done well to limit such moments.
While those familiar with the original may lament the loss of the rich back story, the unforced performances and dialogue — from an uncredited script devised in the rehearsal room — create an evocative atmosphere. The eight-strong cast, directed by Kristine Landon-Smith, moves fluidly from callousness to despair, from fortitude to disdain. Shiv Grewal makes the Beggarmaster a tough but trusty slum kingpin; Rehan Sheikh and Amit Sharma are appealing but unsentimental as the tailors; Sudha Bhuchar gives Dina a persuasive brittleness, though she rushes some of her more informative moments, as if embarrassed at having to punt such hit-and-run comments about the political status quo.
There are confusing moments, too. It’s not immediately clear that the actors are all playing more than one role and audibility is sometimes a problem. But the wobbles in tone derive from the determination to force in all the necessary information. An epic tale is reduced to its basic parts, but the atmosphere invites us to fill in the picture for ourselves.
Until January 28. 020-7722 9301