Writers: Guleraana Mir & afshan d’souza lodhi
Director: Madelaine Moore
Designer: Sascha Gilmour
Sound Design and Composition: Tom Curzon
Set in pre-partition India, Santi and Naz, is the story of two teenage best friends set against the backdrop of life changing world events.
Voracious bookworm, Sikh Santi and her best friend, the rather feistier Muslim Naz’s lives are lived in a small village. A village in a region that is destined to become the dividing line between India and Pakistan. They dance and play in the fields, revel in the first monsoon rains, swoon over the local hottie Rahul while discussing, in their own naïve way, the politics that are swirling around them. Politics that will ultimately divide them forever.
Whilst the political discourse rages around them, there are other factors that intrude into their once simple, happy daily lives: the looming arranged marriage of the uncompliant Naz and the pairs’ growing and complex feelings of love for one another.
The pacing is somewhat uneven, spending time on the minute details of their daily lives one moment moving to lyrical poetic passages, to sequences of music and dance to impersonations of the leading political figures of the time to serious drama. The conclusion when it comes, seems to do so abruptly.
The actors do their best with what they are given, but neither of the characters go beyond the superficial and their incredibly child-like behaviour is at odds with the more serious material that is shoe-horned into the muddled narrative. The central pair’s chemistry never truly convinces. It feels like too many ideas without a clear vision of the story arc.
There is so much here to work with, especially hearing a story from a misunderstood, rarely studied period of history and from underrepresented groups, but in its present form it fails to satisfy.
While at times it bursts with energy, it never elevates itself above being a small, personal, coming of age story despite the rich source material.
Runs until 19 October 2024 | Image: Paul Blakemore
