SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewBehind the Beautiful Forevers
|
"The ash from our cow dung fires drifts across and lands in their swimming pools."
— Abdul
|
Shane Zaza as Abdul Husain and Hiran Abeysekera as Sunil Sharma (Photo: Richard Hubert Smith) |
Katherine Boo conducted interviews with real people living in the slums and wrote her documentary book published in 2011. The people in the slum undercity are an embarrassment to India as Mumbai tries to join developing Third World cities. The title "Beautiful Forever" comes from an advertising hoarding, advertising flooring or wall tiles, which is on the cusp of Annawadi and the International Airport.
We follow the trials of Zehrunisa Husain (Meera Syal) whose Muslim family has a rubbish sorting business. Brutality and corruption are everywhere. A criminal gang blind a suspected police informer, which made me gasp in horror, every bit as bad as Gloucester's in King Lear. That's the criminals, but these vulnerable people have as much to fear from the police and the officials whose job it is to uphold justice. There are other scenes which are brutal and harrowing to experience.
Katherine Boo's writing is rich, colourful and involving as we quickly make up our minds as to whom we condemn for lies and corruption, often abusing power. There are inexplicable mysteries like why one of the Husains' neighbours, Fatima Shaikh (Thusitha Jayasundera), a woman and prostitute they call "One Leg" because of her deformed foot would actually pour petrol on herself and set it on fire in order to implicate her rivals in an accusation of a crime.
The local woman who "fixes" things for a fee, Asha Waghekar (Stephanie Street) refuses a man a loan for a life-saving operation. Through her we meet her daughter Manju Waghekar (Anjana Vasan) a student who is trying to make sense of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway with its study of English class structure in the 1920s. Manju makes more sense of Congreve's Way of the World. Through Manju we meet another teenage girl and think about the marriage issues for girls in India.
Zehrunisa sells everything she has to try to win justice for her family. In order to get her husband and son released she has to pay bribes. Ironically it's a feel good play because we can be so grateful for living in a society largely free from corruption. However there are parallels. When the police decide not to record something as a murder in order to massage the statistics or the hospital staff change the percentage burns from 35% to 95% to explain why she died and make them selves look better, we know that tinkering with statistics can also happen in the West.
Meera Syal gives a beautiful performance and there is a thread of wit and humanity that permeates these dark tales of oppression. Her son Abdul (Shane Zaza) is the prize rubbish sorter so quick is he with his hands and for whom we feel great compassion.
Katherine Boo's characters are a vast study and not all can be included in a dramatization without overcrowding the main theme and David Hare has been selective. Rufus Norris is a master of the visual, the physical spectacle in the theatre and no one seeing Behind the Beautiful Forevers will forget the planes flying low overhead and delivering what seemed like hundreds of plastic bottles onstage only for them to be swept up with makeshift sweepers made from sheets of cardboard.
Katrina Lindsay's set is wide and expansive with the hospital and police station replacing the makeshift tenement building that Zehrunisa wants to improve for her family. The saris are colourful and the sounds and dust of a bustling shanty town convince.
This production augurs so well for Rufus Norris due soon to take over the artistic directorship at the National in promising us worthwhile plays that only the National can afford to produce.
|
Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe,
E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
| Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Written by David Hare Based on the book by Katherine Boo Directed by Rufus Norris Starring: Meera Syal, Stephanie Street, Shane Zaza, Thusitha Jayasundera, Mariam Haque With: Gavi Singh Chera, Hiran Abeysekera, Esh Alladi, Nathalie Armin, Pal Aron, Tia-Lana Chinapyel, Vincent Ebrahim, Sartaj Garewal, Muzz Khan, Ranjit Krishnamma, Manjeet Mann, Nikita Mehta, Anjli Mohindra, Tia Palamathanan, Bharti Patel, Ronak Patani, Chook Sibtain, Anneika Rose, Anjana Vasan, Assad Zaman. Designer: Katrina Lindsay Lighting: Paule Constable Sound Design: Paul Arditti Video Design: Jack Henry James Fight Director: Kate Waters Running time: Two hours 45 minutes with an interval Box Office 020 7452 3000 The National Theatre Website Booking to 13th April 2015 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 19th November 2014 performance at the Olivier, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 9PX (Rail/Tube: Waterloo) |
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email . . . also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. |
