I had not read Indo-Canadian author Rohinton Mistry’s acclaimed 1995 novel
A Fine Balance, set in an unnamed city in India during a tumultuous period termed “The Emergency” between 1977-1979. But several of my friends had dubbed it one of the saddest books that they’ve ever read. Reviewing the synopsis of this 600+ tome in Wikipedia did nothing to dispel this assessment. Dealing with systemic oppression in India’s dictatorial political system at that time, the book touches on the inhumane caste system that demeaned and inflicted brutal violence upon the lower castes, abject poverty and slums, forced labour, rampant corruption, and programs of mandatory sterilization for population control. The novel follows the lives of Ishvar and his teenaged nephew Om, trained tailors who were born into the lowest caste and deemed “untouchables”, the financially strapped widow Dina who employs them, and Maneck, a well-to-do young student who she rents a room to in order to help make ends meet. The four form an unlikely “family” who struggle together to survive these turbulent times.
Given this horrific history as a backdrop and shocking plot elements that involve torture, physical mutilation including castration, murders and suicides, I was skeptical of the novel’s purported underlying theme of resilience and maintaining hope in midst of so much despair (the “fine balance”). I was therefore not looking forward to watching Crow’s Theatre’s stage play based on the novel and adapted by Indo-Canadian playwright Anosh Irani. I braced myself for a 3-hour long night of tension and misery. I also wondered what would remain and what would be lost in the adaptation of such a large novel with so many characters and storylines.
I concluded that Irani did an excellent job by focusing on the four main characters and distilling the important elements of the plot to fit into a reasonably long play, conveying entire chapters of events into single expositional dialogues. In this manner, we found out about the horrors that befell Isvar’s and Om’s families who were brutally murdered by a sadistic upper-caste landowner, about Dina’s struggles for financial and physical independence from her abusive brother, and of Manesh’s hazing in his school dorms that led him to seek lodgings with Dina. I was also surprised to find that the overall tone of the play was not as oppressive and downtrodden as I expected. While the horrors described in the book were definitely portrayed, they were interspersed with lighter, more personal and even tender moments of interaction between the characters and I was amazed at the few moments where I actually chuckled softly. By the end of the play, I was definitely grateful not to have been born to a lower caste in India, but I also admired the spirit, and yes, resilience of these poor people who could find a tiny bit of joy in midst of all the tragedy that they have encountered.
The actors portraying the four main characters were superb, as were the two extra actors who played all the other roles, including a bent-over, aged tax collector and an armless/legless beggar. But as always with every play at Crow’s Theatre, what impressed me most was the staging. The main set is Dina’s apartment with a door and verandah stage left, the living room and kitchen in the centre, and a spare bedroom to the right where the tailors set up their sewing machines. An overhead metal rail at the front of the stage is used to slide across props that transform the space into different locations. At the start of the show, Ishvar, Om and Manesh are all crammed into the same train that is taking them to Dina’s house. A set of overhead grab handles are slid along the track and through the use of lighting, sound effects, and the jostling bodies holding onto the rails, the set becomes a moving train. That the train hits a bump and is delayed by what is probably a body on the tracks (either suicide or murder victim) and the nonchalant reactions of the commuters quickly establishes the normality of such occurrences and foreshadows more to come. Next the hand holds are slid off stage and a door is slid across to become Dina’s front door. This was a quick and effective way to control set changes. On two occasions, video text displayed on the door to establish time jumps (e.g. 3 months later, 8 years later).
In the end, I still would have preferred to spend my time watching a happy play, but I definitely appreciated this work for the touching performances and the innovative staging.
