A Dash of Tiger

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 | 0 comments

The Maharajah's Daughters is a tender treatment of a colonial legacy.

Review by

Richard Turner

What for Christy Cambpell had been a racy Victorian spy story has now, in the more than capable hands of Mehtab Theatre, become transformed into a deeply touching and affectionate tale of two sisters, adrift in Edwardian England.

Campbell's 2001 opus The Maharajah's Box was the starting point for the company's dramatisation of the lives of the daughters of Duleep Singh. Prompted by Mehtab's Parminder Sekhon, prize-winning film and television writer Clive Bradley has produced a script that shines.

Or rather sparkles. There are moments of contradiction and, in an effort to retell the Maharajah's story in parallel with their own, the four characters of Catherine and Sophia, his widow Ada Douglas and India Office minder Henry Thomson, become at times mired in confusion. Audiences need to have read the book.

In all other respects, however, Mehtab Theatre are to be congratulated. The establishment of historical period is impressive and convincing. Edwardian furniture and smaller props provide a realistic ambience, as does the use of contemporary music and sound effects. Crin Claxton's lighting design perfectly captures the gloomy corners and warm glows of gaslight. This is the era of HG Wells' The Time Machine, and it is we who have been transported.

The chamber music strings of Elgar or Debussy give way to the striking and energetic performances of Sakuntala Ramanee as Catherine and Parminder Sekhon as Sophia. The bond between the daughters and their contrasting personalities is soon established. Cathy is brisk and authoritative, Sophie girlish and, as it turns out, idealistic. Religion is an early theme but it's the very complexity of their situation that prevents this from becoming a hectoring, 'single issue' play.

Mandy Vernon-Smith is brilliant as a brassy Ada. She provokes audience laughter with a sub-Marie Lloyd, Music Hall persona, allied to the later saucy blonde stereotype of seaside postcards and Carry On films. Depth is added with a touch of the aggrieved class warrior, encouraging Sophia to fight the common enemy for India. This is more like it - I want to stand up and cheer at this point!

The coldly authoritarian figure of Henry (Grant Burgin) warms and softens progressively during the play. Even while, in the 1930s, he angrily condemns the dopey Sophia's initial support of the Muslim League, Grant manages to give his character shades of compassion. And there is the irony of Henry's recent visit to Calcutta: 'I have never been to India,' Sophia admits.

By the end of the 90 minutes, we have been made to care for these people. Cathy's return from Nazi Germany, after the death of her lover, is followed by her own demise, but it's the touching final scene of a 1947 reconciliation between Henry and Sophia that dampens the eyes. Recommended.

© veena magazine 2003. Used by permission.

This review was first published in the December 2003 issue of veena.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 | permalink | 0 comments

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