Hottest ticket in town
NATIONAL THEATRE’S PLAY ABOUT GANDHI’S MURDER DIVIDES OPINION
ANUPAMA CHANDRASEKHAR’S new play at the National Theatre, The Father and the Assassin – it explores why the Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi – has become the hottest ticket in town.
A friend over from Kolkata with his wife and daughter makes a note in his diary to book tickets. Soon, a dozen friends he has invited for tea last week also decide to get tickets for the play.
My friend tells me that “Kolkata is a small village where everyone knows everyone else” and that almost everyone in his circle is heading for London. He says that “there are 30 girls in my daughter's class – and 12 of are coming to London with their parents.
“One problem is getting even an emergency UK visa – the queue is so long. Another problem is getting an apartment or hotel in London – all the places where Indians stay are fully booked.”
Comments on social media about the play are adding to the stampede for tickets.
Among tweets I came across was one from Andrzej Łukowski: “Years if not centuries can go by with nothing good in the Olivier and then you get a play like The Father and the Assassin which would probably actually justify building the Olivier purely to stage it in.”
Stella Kanu said: “The Father and the Assassin is by far the best play I've seen in a long long time.”
Inevitably, such a controversial subject drew dissenting voices.
The Global Hindu Federation called it “an anti-Hindu biased play, funded by British charities,” and alleged “The Father and the Assassin targets Hinduism, paints patriotic enslaved Hindus as savages….Hinduphobic theatre now joins colonialist Academia and supremacist religions.”
Some national newspaper critics also had reservations.
The Times concluded: “Much of the audience rose to its feet at the end, but I was left unpersuaded that a history lesson, however necessary, had sprouted into a fully functioning play.”
“The play is heavy on exposition but oddly short on dramatic substance,” the Evening Standard commented, adding that “at the end, I felt I'd had a lot of history explained to me, rather than being immersed in it”.
But the Guardian called it a “gripping tale of the man who killed Gandhi”. It said: “This isn't just a chapter in the sad history of the 20th century, but a story of division and whipped-up animosities that has its roots in colonialism and is repeating itself throughout the world today – not least in the UK's own grubby politics.”
It would be a pity if Eastern Eye readers missed this play, especially since 2022 is the 75th anniversary of Indian independence and the birth of Pakistan. It looks at Gandhi's killing through Godse's eyes, but does not justify his murder.