Live and in person at Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Ave. Toronto, Ont. Produced by Crow’s Theatre. Playing until March 30, 2025.
Written by Anusree Roy
Directed by Nina Lee Aquino
Set and Props by Jawon Kang
Costumes by Ming Wong
Lighting by Michelle Ramsay
Sound and composer, by Romeo Candido
Cast: Sahiba Arora
Afroza Banu
Sehar Bhojani
Michelle Mohammed
Muhaddisah
Prerna Nehta
Imali Perera
Anusree Roy
Zorana Sadiq
Mirza Sarhan
A gripping, provocative play about the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. A play and a production that will leave you breathless with its artistry, vision and fearlessness.
The Story. Playwright Anusree Roy writes what she knows. As a woman of South Asian descent, born in Calcutta, she knows about life in South Asia. She has written about that life in such plays as Pyassa, Letters to My Grandma, Brothel #9, Little Pretty & The Exceptional and Sultans of the Street, to name but a few.
She has written about the caste system; women duped into thinking they were offered work as a servant only to realize they were sold into a life in a brothel; and about the stigma of mental health issues in the South Asian community. All these plays are bracing, compassionate, and vivid. With each play Anusree Roy has grown as a playwright, a thinker and a weaver of stories.
Trident Moon is a play that shows Anusree Roy at the top of her writing powers. It is astonishing. It takes place in 1947. The British partitioned British India by drawing a line on a map, creating the two independent countries of India, that was mainly Hindu and Pakistan, that was mainly Muslim. The results were tensions along religious and ethnic lines; violence and the displacement of millions of people. Trident Moon distills these huge political issues and places them in the back of a truck, initially holding three Hindu women and three Muslim women. The truck is being driven toward Hindu India.
The Hindu women are Alo (Anusree Roy), her sister Bani (Sehar Bhojani) and Bani’s developmentally delayed daughter Arun (Sahiba Arora). She has initiated the kidnapping of the three Muslim women, Bani (Sehar Bhojani), Pari (Muhaddisah) and Heera (Prerna Nehta) tied their hands behind them and declared revenge because Pari’s husband was responsible for the death of Alo’s husband and two sons. In the pandemonium Bani was shot and is in severe pain. Alo worked for the Muslim family as a servant. They looked down on her and her family as inferior and lower class. Because of the fraught political times three other women are taken into the truck: Sonali (Zorana Sadiq) a pregnant Sikh woman, Sumaiya (Afroza Banu), who has secrets about her nationality, and a young woman, Munni (Michelle Mohammed), who Sumaiya says is her daughter.
The Production. Jawon Kang has created a stark yet beautiful set. Floating down from the flies are curving swaths of elegant fabric, evocative of the material for saris or other national clothing from South Asia. On stage level is a floor leading up to the door at the back of the truck. Michelle Ramsay’s lighting creates a shaft of yellow light that bisects the space. The Hindu women, dressed in pale yellow, are on the stage right of the truck. The Muslim women in pale green are on the stage left of the truck.
For the first part of the play invective is hurled to the Muslim women on the other side of the yellow line, usually by Alo, played with fierce conviction by Anusree Roy. The Muslims return their own invective, usually by Pari, played with imperious disdain by Muhaddisah. A quibble here, I initially found Romeo Candido’s soundscape at the beginning of the production intrusive and overpowered the dialogue. There are a lot of characters on stage. It’s imperative we hear each clearly. The volume should be turned down a notch. It was fine and evocative for the rest of the production.
As the play progresses, the invective hurled and returned, the focus of the ‘sides’ begins to blur. At times the wounded Bani lays across the yellow line. The tension in the truck increases in a steady pace as more and more credible complications arise. At one point all the women are confronted by a gun-wielding rebel named “Lovely” played with hair-trigger intensity by Mirza Sarhan who breaks into the truck to steal any money or jewels. He has to prove himself to his fellow marauders. The women subtly band together to thwart him. The fault lines shift.
The production is beautifully directed by Nina Lee Aquino. Her attention to the slow and relentless building of tension keeps the audience engaged, holding their breath and gripping the arm-rest. There is an ebb and flow of the tension to give the play some breathing room. And through all the high drama of the confined situations, there is humour. It’s not easy and cheap. It’s earned and true. Playwright Anusree Roy captures the particular turns of phrases of her characters quirky speech patterns. Sumaiya, wonderfully acted by Afroza Banu, is a woman who thinks on her feet. She pleads to enter the truck on the journey dressed as one religious faction, but is really of the another. She has to win over both the Hindu and Muslim women in the truck. Her banter is quick-witted, irreverent but not insulting. She is jokey, hilarious and always compelling. Afroza Banu as Sumaiya gives one fine performance. All the performances are dandy. The cast is a true ensemble.
Trident Moon is a bristling, evocative play that encapsulates the rancor and cost of hatred, religious, ethnic and political intolerance all placed in the back of the truck with nine woman and one man representing the many and various sides of this explosive situation. Playwright Anusree Roy creates many twists and turns in her multi-faceted story, and not one of them are facile or sentimental. They are all earned. Her characters are fully drawn and all have their own absorbing story. She has taken the huge, complex political division of two countries, and distilled it down to the human face of the partition.
Comment. A symbol for India is the trident. A symbol for Pakistan is a crescent moon. Playwright Anusree Roy combined the two symbols to create the title of the play. Fitting and brilliant.
I saw a workshop of Trident Moon about 13 years ago. It was stunning then. I have waited impatiently as the play had its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre, in London, England in 2016 and a workshop at the Stratford Festival a few years ago, before an artistic director had the vision to program it here. Kudos to Crow’s artistic director, Chris Abraham for programing Trident Moon for his present season. It was so worth the wait. How lucky we are to have a playwright as gifted as Anusree Roy, who goes from strength to strength telling her stories with conviction, truth and profound artistry.
Crow’s Theatre Presents:
Runs until March 30, 2025.
Running time: 90 minutes. (No intermission)
www.crowstheatre.com