“What are you staring at? Have you never seen a killer up close?” Since her stunningly secured debut in 2007’s “Free Exit,” shrewd playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar has been quietly breaking the rules to achieve dramatic effect. In her notable debut on the national stage with The Father and the Killer, a play about the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, she continued the process by manipulating the audience with this opening line. It was not delivered with the expected threat but the magic of winning. Within seconds, armed with Chandrasekhar’s writing and extended production by director Indhu Rubasingham, lead actor Shubham Saraf has the audience in the palm of his hand.
From that moment on, the audience was prepared for the unexpected and it seemed that taking one side would be an astonishingly complicated business. This proves, not least because with the character of Teller declaring his conviction of the word go, this is, boldly, a murder mystery without the mystery.
The question being asked is not who is violating himself, but why did he do it? Although on the surface the answer appears to be implicit in its place and time, this is a play on the present. Centered on the assassination of the father of the Indian nation, Chandrasekhar’s play takes place in the face of India’s increasingly violent struggle for independence, but its image of extremism and its roots reverberate in contemporary politics around the world.
This is one reason why Rubasingham wisely chose to present the play at Olivier, the largest acreage in the National, home of epics such as the original production of “War Horse”. Most of them consist of relatively small dialogue scenes, and detailed discussions of the play relate to decisions affecting the lives of millions across the Indian subcontinent, not to mention the play’s three time periods. It all takes space.
The handsome production shakes confidence off the opening photo. Design and direction harmonize perfectly with Rajah Chakri’s giant sculptural piece of traditional khadi weaving glowing under beautifully lit corners by Oliver Fenwick. Together they control and control the abstract group. In addition to some props and the occasional little piece to mark the necessary location, Rubasingham prohibits literal representation. With its foot firmly on the dramatic pedal and continually taking advantage of the gigantic rotation of the stage, it ensures that individual scenes, spaces and arguments slide seamlessly into one another. In a historical play like this, where a detailed explanation is necessary, this momentum is a blessing.
There is a great deal of explanation: historical, political and personal. The very traditional approach to this is to find excuses for characters to explain things unnecessarily to each other to provide audiences with vital information. There is almost none of that here. Instead, the information is handled in a much faster and fully presented manner with Saraf’s character, Nathuram Godse, who is not only the killer but the narrator as well. It’s such a bald solution that it shouldn’t work, but it does, not least because its straight title is full of wit.
As the interpreter and figure, he takes us from being a seven-year-old, through his life as a staunch follower of Gandhi to completely changing his mind via his absolute rejection of Gandhi’s non-violent protest movement, through his life. His last moments at the age of 39 until his current perspective.
Realizing that telling the tale from Godse’s perspective is dangerous on one side, Chandrasekar doesn’t simply present opposing political views across other characters. Childhood friend, Vimila (Dinita Gohill, cheerful and jovial) created to later question (out of his anger) his role and memory as narrator.
Detailed, accurate descriptions abound elsewhere, particularly from Bazley Gandhi’s Paul piercing. He is presented as the traditional white-clad man of peace, but with all the requisite fury that leads him to his political and literal travels.
There is a fine work also of the elegant, graceful and long-suffering Anchor Bahl tailor; Sid Sagar shines as Godse’s ardent partner in crime; A very determined Aisha Dharker is the mother of Godse. After losing each of her three boys, she initially raises her child as a girl so as not to anger the goddess who thinks she took her sons. This, and his mean relationship to the goddess that makes him worship as a child, leads not only to confusion of the sexes but to a complete rejection of everything related to this part of his life. All this is part of a properly complex picture of a man whose convictions are always dangerously absolute.
From throwing a pointed side about “The False Attenborough Movie with Sir Ben Kingsley” to suggesting towering rage that consumes him, but never exaggerates it, he drives the vast theater teller with what seems to be no stress at all. This physical ease is not only convincingly attractive, but also makes the place feel intimate as it draws the audience in. He does not act in their face and on the other characters, but rather act on them. It’s a stellar performance in a perfect production of a play that turns an inevitable outcome into a dynamic evening of inevitable history that plays into a series of surprises.
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