The set is designed by Katrina Lindsay (who has also designed the play, “ Behind The Beautiful Forevers“). There are a lot of flashbacks signposted by dates screened on the stage wall.
They are illustrated by the use of the Mughal ornamented lattice sliding screen structures that open and close. The scenes in this play are many and constantly changing. Here again, the dilemma for Aurangzeb is whether to pardon his brother or have him executed?Īurangzeb takes his cue from his imperial eunuch, ‘Itbar’ (Chook Sibtain) observing how he deals with his parents who arrive to claim him after originally selling him into slavery and it’s not pretty.
The centerpiece of the play is the trial scene where Dara and Prosecutor Talib (Prasanna Puwanarajah) have to battle is out, is masterful and is a full thirty-one minutes long.
Nevertheless, Aurangzeb is open to other temptations: he doesn’t drink but is in love with a Hindu dancing girl who, sadly, dies in his arms (this is not a spoiler) but another psychological reason why he turns out to be the person that he is, and as a consequence of his grief he decides to shut down music and wine. ( Read our interview with both here)ĭara (played by Zubin Varla) is drawn towards a tolerant Sufi leaning of Islam, whilst his bro, Aurangzeb (Sergon Yalda) favours a more austere form ( both Varla and Yelda are outstanding as the two rival siblings).Īurangzeb (Sargon Yelda) and Hindu dancing girl Hira Bai (Anjana Vasan) “ Dara“, directed by Nadia Fall is loosely adapted by Tanya Ronder, a British writer, from the Urdu play by Shahid Nadeem originally performed by Ajoka Theatre Company, from Pakistan. The show gives us a bit of Mughal history, sibling rivalry, and different interpretations of Islam. He then humiliates the sensitive teenager by shoving his face into the palace pond and thus creating an everlasting feeling of jealousy in the boy towards his older brother, Dara Shikoh, a popular, liberal and charming heir designate. We have all learnt from reading our “ Grimm’s Fairy Tales” that such questions are asked at our peril and the answer that Aurangzeb will be the instigator of this decline predictably makes him furious. Shah Jahan or ‘The Great Mughal’ (played as larger than life by Vincent Ebrahim), asks a wandering Sufi mendicant, called Fakir (Scott Karim) – based on the real Sufi Mystic poet, Sarmad Kashani – who brings some apples to his sick daughter, the killer question, ‘Which son of mine will destroy my blood line?’ IT’S AN ENTERTAINING premise of the play – “ Dara” currently on at the National Theatre – that the reason why the Timurid Mughal dynasty founded by Babur went into decline was because of a predication. Once regarded as the richest empire ever established on earth, did the Mughals lay the seeds of their own destruction through needless religious and sibling disputes?