Theatre review: When the Crows Visit

If the last few years have seen a cultural shift towards highlighting the harassment and abuse women have been routinely suffering around the world, Indian playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar has some particularly brutal truths to speak to her own country, and horrors she sees as having been silently passed down the generations. She takes inspiration - very loosely - from Ibsen's tale of the sins of the father being visited on the son, Ghosts, for her own story of a son returning home with a terrible secret, When the Crows Visit. Widow Hema (Ayesha Dharker) lives in the home she inherited from a husband so violently abusive she's considered lucky to have survived him. The seven years since his death have been a kind of liberation for her but she still has a constant reminder in her mother-in-law Jaya (Soni Razdan) who still lives with her, along with her young carer Ragini (Aryana Ramkhalawon.)

Hema's only son Akshay (Bally Gill) returns unexpectedly from Mumbai where he's been working as a phone game developer. He says he's on leave, but his sudden arrival comes straight after a young woman was gang-raped in Mumbai in a case that's shocked the country.

Hema is soon fending off a corrupt police inspector (Asif Khan,) who's blackmailing her with the fact that Akshay is a suspect; neither of them believes it's true but the family's reputation is everything and the mere suspicion would tarnish it. But Hema can't shake off the feeling that there could be truth in it after all and her son's inherited more than just his looks from his father. Richard Kent's gorgeous set brings to life the airy but still oppressive house the family refer to as cursed - nothing has grown within the garden walls for decades - and the language keeps evoking the supernatural even as there's no question about how very human the source of the evil in the house is.

When she's not berating her daughter-in-law or carer Jaya is constantly going off on stories about the Hindu gods - invariably ones where a female deity remains loyal to a male one who's mistreated her, giving the story a wider context of the culture that would create a woman like Jaya, still defending her dead son's memory to a woman she knows perfectly well was abused by him. What's interesting about the play is that it's gradually revealed to really be about Hema trying to break the cycle - out of a mix of misplaced love for her son and wanting to keep up appearances it seems likely she'll end up keeping her silence like her hated mother-in-law, and it's genuinely chilling when she decides to help scapegoat Akshay's friend David (Paul G Raymond) for her son's crime.

Indhu Rubasingham's production is as strong all-round as we've come to expect from her, with its very dark theme often lightened by comedy from Jaya and Ragini's fractious relationship or Khan's fussy neighbour, while there's some hope for a better alternative in Hema's liberated sister (Mariam Haque.) But there's no question the casting of the central pair is the key to its success - Dharker's expressive face shows her character's endless inner conflict, while Gill has largely played rather sweet characters in the past, and bringing that charm to a character like this one makes him genuinely frightening. When the Crows Visit is intense and goes to some upsetting places but it's masterfully done, and while Chandrasekhar has some harsh accusations to make against her country's culture towards women the play maintains a seam of genuine belief that there's reason to hope for change.

When the Crows Visit by Anupama Chandrasekhar is booking until the 30th of November at the Kiln Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Mark Douet.