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by Tanika Gupta, directed by Sally Clark

Rasik Arts, Dancemakers Centre, Toronto

December 2-11, 2005

Priya (Ronica Sajnani) has just died.  Her soul has three days to reconcile itself with the past before it can go to the great “waiting room” in the sky.  This is story of Bengali-British author Tanika Gupta’s play The Waiting Room, first produced in Britain in 2000 and now receiving its North American premiere.  The story is not exactly new.  It’s rather like the scenes between newly dead Emily and the Stage Manager in Wilder’s Our Town.  In Priya’s case, her spirit guide is not a symbolic stage manager or the god Krishna but the only person she ever adored, Dilip Kumar (Selvamani Rajaram), a Bollywood heartthrob of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Gupta’s play is sentimental and undemanding but shot through with gentle humour.  Its main interest for non-Hindus is its glimpse of another culture’s view of the afterlife.  The production would be recommendable if only it were not under-rehearsed and the general acting of amateur level.  Voice control problems, stock gestures and Ontarian accents mar several performances.  Though sometimes inaudible, Sajnani takes Priya through vivid stages of denial, outrage and acceptance.  Rajaram, a smile always in his voice, is a genial presence while Ishwar Mooljee is moving as Priya’s aged former lover.  Still, this Waiting Room needs much more work to be fully satisfying. 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2005-12-08.

Photo: Selvamani Rajaram and Ronica Sajnani. ©2005 Michael Cooper.