Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), May 3 – Jun 1, 2025
Playwright: S. Shakthidharan
Director: Hannah Goodwin, S. Shakthidharan
Cast: Manali Datar, Nadie Kammallaweera, Radhika Mudaliyar, Vaishnavi Suryaprakash
Images by Brett Boardman
Theatre review
Isha is a schoolgirl exhibiting great promise, with a brilliant mind and a passion for science that have attracted attention, from American industry entering rural India. Her mother Nirmala wants the best for Isha, but making decisions about an uncertain future is difficult, even if the gods seem so resolute with what they stand for. Provocative ideas are presented in The Wrong Gods by S. Shakthidharan through scintillating conversations, between characters who are thoroughly authentic, and interminably sympathetic.
It explores notions of progress, technology, capitalism and colonisation, from perspectives realistic rather than ideological, based on interviews conducted with those of relevant lived experience. The tremendous poignancy of Shakthidharan’s writing may be derived from a specific story originating in an Indian village, but its resonances are universal. As an Australian work, The Wrong Gods seems often to reflect on Indigenous dispossession and displacement, allowing us to further relate to the themes and ethos of this deeply affecting creation.
Co-direction by Shakthidharan and Hannah Goodwin delivers emotional intensity, for a highly consequential examination of our very times and values. Complexities of thought are conveyed with astonishing salience, for a show that is as intellectually stimulating as it is moving. Music composition by Sabyasachi (Rahul) Bhattacharya, along with sound design by Steve Francis, are a marvellous concoction that proves stirring even if its expressions are always delicate.
Inspired by farmlands of South Asia, set design by Keerthi Subramanyam is a beautiful evocation of our relationship with nature, making a statement about human activity in conjunction with notions of the organic. Lights by Amelia Lever-Davidson are elegantly rendered, adding subtle enhancements to aid dramatic tension, for a tale that is consistently escalating.
Actor Nadie Kammallaweera as farmer Nirmala brings to the stage gravity and power, leaving a lasting impression with her exacting physicality and commanding voice. Isha is played by the charismatic Radhika Mudaliyar whose persuasive naturalism has us hopelessly invested in a narrative about the conundrum of modernisation. Vaishnavi Suryaprakash is a compelling presence, and wonderfully nuanced, as Lakshmi the local representative of foreign interests. Manali Datar is appropriately spirited as Devi, an activist working for the resistance against deleterious commercialisation.
We know progress to be inevitable, but it is imperative that its momentum is always kept in check. Having seen the many devastations that have resulted from greed in the guise of advancements, it is shocking that those who control technology should be allowed to act wantonly. We cannot stop time from moving forward, but we must always be able to raise caution, be able to slow things down, and not be deceived by those who characterise our collective gain, as a race.
Suzy Goes See 