A lot of theatre critics bow down to the altar of Arcadia
as Tom Stoppard’s best play—probably because its time-shifting structure is
just smart enough to flatter their intelligence, without actually being the
kind of smart that makes them feel dumber than the playwright. (The kind, in other words, that always makes
them write bad reviews.)
And while there’s no denying the play’s heady intelligence,
heady is exactly the right adjective. Arcadia’s
thrills are intellectual first and emotional second. Does anybody in the audience actually shed a tear at the
end? You get a vision of the grand
sweep of history (complete with footnotes), of things lost and found, but you
don’t really mourn the loss of Thomasina.
(And thematically, isn’t it the point of the play that you shouldn’t
mourn individual loss?)
Indian Ink is different. The smartness isn’t constantly pointing to
itself and crying “Look at this, isn’t it brilliant?” You get a vision of one woman’s life (complete with footnotes),
of things lost and found, and you actually do mourn the loss of the main
character, even though the set up, a time-shift between the 1930’s and the
1980’s, tells you right from the start that she’s a goner. It’s a culture-clash story that is very
casual and breezy, very conversational instead of rhetorical, but it has the
potential to break your heart. And in
the current Roundabout production, it does.
The plot is simple: female British poet journeys to India for
her health, and along the way gets her portrait done by a local painter. Two portraits, actually. Out of this, Stoppard manages to comment on
colonialism, cultural appropriation, the difference between a revolution and a
mutiny, politics, feminism, sex, passion—you know, all that good stuff which never
seems to make an appearance in modern American plays. (Speaking of which, the sole academic in the play is an American,
which—in British Playwright Shorthand—makes him the asshole.)
The script has been touched up and tightened a little for
this production. The acting adds depth
and reality to the cleverness of the lines.
Romola Garai plays Flora Crewe, journeying through India and writing
letters to her socialist sister around the time of Gandhi’s Salt March. She
plays the part so well that you will want to Google Flora Crewe to see if any
of her poetry books are still in print.
Rosemary Harris, who plays the surviving sister, can do this kind of
thing in her sleep—and because she’s Rosemary Harris, that never happens. And
Firdous Bamji is superb as a painter divided between his love of English
culture and his own national heritage.
And yes, the play is full of laughs, and no, it’s
not Arcadia, but that’s a good thing, because in this production,
it’s the one thing Arcadia isn’t: in the end, it’s moving. It’s touching. You really get a sense of loss.
And you’ll get a bigger one if
you don’t see it.
