That tea can stimulate introspection and reflections was beautifully portrayed by five wonderful actresses of the Ruchika Theatre Group. The 75-minute play, ‘Tea’, performed at the Trident, as part of the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival, has several contemporary undertones, thanks to the relevance of migration in the current geopolitical debate. Directed by Feisal Alkazi, ‘Tea’ – written by Velina Hasu Houston — depicts conversations in the Post World War II era, between four Japanese women settled in United States having married American war veterans to start their lives afresh.
The women — Setsuko (Nandini), Atsuko (Gayatri), Chiz (Preeti) and Taruko (Smita) — gather at the house of a fifth, Himiko (Radhika Alkazi), to honour her after she commits suicide, fed up with a tough life and an abusive husband. Himiko is present there as a ghost, an interesting angle of the narrative, while the other four ladies seem all jolly until the layers are peeled off to reveal their nostalgia for their country. The four characters discuss the life of a Japanese wife in a booming America and wonder if it really is what it was supposed to be!
Interesting narrative
The simple lighting and production design created the right mood for a conversation-heavy play. While Taruko had the best lines, making the audience laugh at several points, Atsuko had the widest range, starting out as the gossipy bubbly lady, but revealing a distinct melancholic side later. The play also enthralled audiences with interesting narratives. There was a scene where the five ladies double up as their husbands talking about their wives, and later as five kids — children of these women — with their own joys, trials and tribulations. Gayatri’s depiction of her husband, especially with the apt body language, was one of the high-points of the play. She pulled off the brashness of Atsuko with élan. While Taruko, Setsuko and Chiz, who had the added layer of someone trying hard to be an American but was ridiculed for being married to a Mexican, had insightful bits, Himiko delivered the most powerful monologues. Gayatri was brilliant even while depicting Himiko’s child and husband, a cynical angry man who believed in domestic abuse.
The play wittily brought out prejudices that migrants often encounter in foreign lands. The story was inspired by more than one lakh Japanese women, who in the true sense, married their enemy. Feisal Alkazi’s wonderful adaptation for the stage points out that migration is still a very relevant issue in the present world order. He points out how ‘women are custodians of culture’ and hence, ideally placed to discuss the issues of migration and the transformations that migrants are forced to undergo in order to fit in.
The play left no stone unturned to relay how the four women missed the tiny joys of the typical Japanese life, from food to the type of tea they had – something they gave up for a safe, secure life in a country that seems warm and welcoming on the outside, but never really adopted them as truly their own. That melancholia, the bittersweet nostalgia was perfectly emoted by all five actresses, dressed in their lovely kimonos.
It was an evening well spent, but for the usual lack of etiquette on the part of the audience, whose phone calls and nonchalant walks along the alleys, disturbed the mood repeatedly. The actresses and the director deserved better!