The Father and the Assassin
Theatricalizing a true event is no small task, and Anupama Chandrasekhar never fails to make extracts from her country’s history timely, urgent, and necessary.
Her latest play, The Father and the Assassin, is no different. This time, in fact, the stakes are even higher. Two incredible figures (for two incredibly different reasons) in India’s history— Mahatma Ghandi, and his killer— take their positions as the production’s two titular characters. Chandrasekhar, however, immediately shifts the audience toward the perspective of Ghandi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse. And, boy oh boy, is this a wild ride from start to finish. The playwright certainly isn’t playing it safe here, and I couldn’t find the words to convey how I was affected by this particular narrative other than: it’s Humbert Humbert from Nabokov’s Lolita.
Godse frequently and directly addresses the audience, noting the problematic nature of its keen interest in him…a murderer. In this sense, perhaps Chandrasekhar is also pointing at her audience’s questionable fascination in the often-grisly stories she chooses to theatricalise. I, for instance, went to see her production of When the Crows Visit at the Kiln Theatre in 2019— a historical drama about the not-so-distant Delhi bus gang rape of 2012. The Father and the Assassin was quite tame compared to the contents of this one (and there is still plenty of violence this time around), but nonetheless, it is worth noting this thread that consistently reappears in Chandrasekhar’s work. Is it a good move to indict the audience, as Ghandi’s Hindu radicalist assassin does here? That, I am entirely unsure of.
As Godse’s relationship with the audience develops further, another thread in Chandrasekhar’s work is revealed: her non-stop desire to “tell it like it is.” As a writer myself, I am both inspired and uneasy by this urge. On one hand, this often manifests itself as a somewhat cheesy, trite (dare I say, cheeky?) choice. At one point, for instance, Godse claims that the audience has never heard his side of the story… but isn’t every story presenting a “new side,” or perspective, when it is first told? Godse’s childhood friend, Vimala, frequently enters the narrative as well. Godse asks, what is she doing here? In my story?
These little moments are, personally speaking, a little grating to watch. At the same time, these are easter eggs of unrealised exploration for the playwright: How do we tell a story that moves backwards and forwards in time, for instance, without saying it moves backwards and forwards in time? How do we tell a story without telling how we are going to tell the story? How can we engage with the audience and connect the past to the present without the direct address device? And finally, what is the value of this particular perspective? How does it add to one of the most famous events in India’s history?
It is within this last question that I also realise the strength in Chandrasekhar’s “tell it like it is” approach. Premiering this work to a mostly British audience in, perhaps, the most British theatre of them all— the National Theatre— is no small feat for a South Asian writer. An outside eye might think: oh, the story of Ghandi’s assassination. Well, that’s a safe, producible work. I would argue that Chandrasekhar’s wish to write an Indian story for British audiences is still (unfortunately) pretty daring, even in 2022. Especially in its post-Brexit era, the United Kingdom also feels the strain of socio-political divides, but it fails to comprehend the scale at which India has been facing these issues for centuries.
The Father and the Assassin is on at the National Theatre until 18th June 2022.
