Crow’s Theatre & National Arts Centre/Trident Moon, written by Anusree Roy, directed by Nina Lee Aquino, Guloien Theatre, Streetcar Crowsnest, closes Mar. 30. Tickets here.
Playwright Anusree Roy’s Trident Moon is a harrowing theatre experience.
The setting is a speeding transport truck carrying a diverse group of women from the newly created Pakistan to India. Given the temper of the times, it is a perilous journey.
Words like tension, hostility, fear, anger, rage and conflict barely scratch the surface in describing the volcanic core of the play.
The plight of these women holds you in its grip and won’t let go.
The Historical Background
The partition of India in 1947 was a result of Britain granting independence to the subcontinent. The Muslim faction, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, demanded their own country because they feared being swallowed up within the vast Hindu majority. Thus, an arbitrary line was drawn to create two separate countries, trapping Hindus and other non-Muslims in Pakistan, and Muslims in India.
The result was the displacement of over 15 million people, and as each group struggled to get to the right side of the border, there was widespread violence committed by both groups, resulting in a mammoth bloodbath in which an estimated one million people lost their lives.
With this savagery came the not so surprising sexual assault on women. Roy’s title for the play says it all. When a Hindu man raped a Muslim woman, he carved a trident on her wrist, while a Muslim rapist carved a crescent moon.
It is from this terrible danger that the women are making their escape.
The Characters
At first there are six women and children in the truck driven by Alo’s brother-in-law Kumar (whom we never see), and who presumably is Bani’s husband.
The fiercely bitter Alo, (playwright Roy herself) is a Hindu who worked for a wealthy Muslim family. During the sectarian violence, Alo’s husband and sons were killed by the Muslim men of the house. In revenge, she has kidnapped her former women employers — the outspoken Pari (Muhaddisah) and the silent Rabia (Imali Perera) — a second wife? — along with Pari’s ten-year-old daughter Arun (Prerna Nehta).
During the fighting, Alo’s sister Bani (Sehar Bhojani) was shot, so Alo is having to tend to the injured woman, while trying to keep control of Bani’s mentally delayed, six-year-old daughter Arun (Sahiba Arora), not to mention the necessity of guarding her captives.
Alo’s vengeful goal is to take her three Muslim victims to India and hand them over to Hindu men who will carve tridents on their wrists.
Into this explosive situation come two other women and a child who have managed to bribe Kumar to let them on the truck. Each unexpected, loud, terrifying bang on the door announcing their presence, sends an electric shock wave through the women. They are paralyzed with fear as to who might be knocking.
The first to come is the heavily pregnant Sonali (Zorana Sadiq) who wants to get to India to find her husband who has disappeared. If anything, she brings a breath of humour with her nonstop chatter and eccentric observations on life.
The next is the expansive, good-humoured Sumaiya (Afoza Banu) who claims to be the grandmother of the young Munni (Mishelle Mohammed). Over time, this duo reveals some astonishing secrets.
There is one more character, the marauding young bandit whom Roy has ironically named Lovely (Mirza Sarhan). He is frantic to find treasure in the truck because those are his orders, and he’s afraid to come back empty-handed. What he makes the women do and what he does to them is unspeakable.
Needless to say, each new arrival has an impact on the already fraught dynamics permeating the truck.
The Drama
The trip has already begun as the play opens. The women have taken their places in the truck — the Muslims together with their hands tied, and the Hindus grouped around the injured Bani. No matter which ethnicity, however, the women are clearly traumatized.
The tense dialogue is always to the point as the conversation twists and turns in unexpected ways. The play is mostly built around small events, broken up by the tightly wired Alo’s eruptions of anger.
The happenings can be summed up in brief descriptions.
Alo tells the Muslim women why she has abducted them. Pari gets into a shouting match with Alo. The Muslim women scream for help. The two children find each other, much to Pari’s dismay. Arun shows affection to Alo who raised her, and Alo can’t help but respond. From time to time, Bani groans in distress. The newcomers tell their stories and answer questions, and so it continues.
Yet, within these seemingly simple happenings, Roy has built in a miasma of anxiety and desperation that is the throughline of the play. Panic lurks just beneath the surface. The women know the brutal devastation that is happening outside the truck, and that awareness is always present.
However, be warned. All is not simple, and the playwright has introduced some jarring surprises.
The women do band together when Lovely assaults them. He is the catalyst that triggers a burgeoning rapprochement between Alo and Pari.
Roy’s Alo dominates the play, a nervous, jumpy, mercurial woman who is struggling with her new role of leader, and the playwright/actor gives an absolutely magnificent performance.
Another standout is Sadiq’s chatterbox Sonali who sails along, indifferent to how the other women react to her. Nothing ruffles her feathers.
Taken together, all ten actors make a formidable ensemble. It is a very impressive cast, to say the least,
Problems
Without doubt, the forceful impact of Trident Moon seizes the watcher’s attention. Nonetheless, the violent emotions embedded within the dramatic framework mask some shortcomings in the script.
We don’t know much about the initial four adults, but something feels thin because the characters of the later arrivals are much more detailed.
As for Lovely, he moves too abruptly from menace to weakness, and as result his exit from the truck falls flat.
And then there is the problem of what I call the improbables — those bizarre occurrences that defy reality like the cure for Bani’s gunshot wound. If I spelled these out, they would be spoilers, but it does beg the question as to why Roy included them. Alas, they do introduce the thread of incredulity.
Finally, there is the ending, another improbable, which seems like too easy a way out.
I do apologize for the vagaries.
The Production
Director Nina Lee Aquino has orchestrated an impressive choreographic pattern for Jawon Kang’s claustrophobic set.
At the back of the stage are the large backdoors of the truck, with the interior indicated by a raised platform. Admittedly, the resulting space, though cramped, is larger than an actual truck, but needs must. Aquino devised movement for her cast that operates beautifully within a confined space, their changing positions feeling both natural and believable.
Designer Kang has also placed bundles of clothes and various boxes around the stage to give a sense of reality. Logically, these women have taken some possessions with them. It is not an empty truck.
Kang has also placed an important symbol in the middle of the stage — a sharply jagged line evoking a streak of lightning. It is the great divide that separates the Hindus from the Muslims, both within the truck and in the tumultuous, chaotic world outside.
The passage of time is indicated by Michelle Ramsay’s clever lighting, which bathes the stillness of the women in muted darkness. Her lighting for the interior of the truck itself has a dingy veneer but there is enough brightness to not obstruct the action.
Romeo Candido’s edgy Eastern-influenced music runs throughout the play, mirroring the tensions within. He has cleverly included the sounds of changing gears and the roar of a revving engine. We also hear muted shouts and intermittent gun fire. There is also an occasional music effect that alerts the women to lose their balance as if the truck were negotiating a sharp curve.
The ubiquitous Ming Wong has fashioned both saris and pantaloons for the women and the children with each being subtly different. The costumes also reflect time spent in a filthy truck, giving the women a dishevelled and unkempt look. The use of colour differentiates the two groups, with the Hindus in what looks like pale yellow, and the Muslims in pale blue. The only real flash of colour is Munni’s red wedding dress.
Epilogue
Most importantly, through conversation and storytelling, we pick up the fact that these women have been victimized throughout their entire lives, albeit in different ways.
For example, Munni was being married off at ten. Then there is Lovely, who humiliates the women with ease. We also hear a dreadful story about women being ordered to jump into a well.
However, the major theme from playwright Roy is her desire for us to recognize that her characters are resilient and ultimately defiant. They are survivors.
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