Theatre review: Guards at the Taj

As well as being one of the most famous man-made landmarks on Earth, Taj Mahal in Agra, India is known as something of a romantic symbol of love, built as it was by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tribute to his favourite wife after her death. But there's also an enduring legend that he decreed no other structure should ever match its beauty, and to ensure this had the hands cut off the 20,000 workers who built the monument so they could never work on anything else. Rajiv Joseph's 2015 play Guards at the Taj deals with this contrast of profound beauty and extreme cruelty that the Taj represents, and Adam Karim revives it at the Orange Tree as this year's JMK Award winning director. During the 16 years of construction, the monument was hidden from public view behind a wall, and the play opens a few hours before dawn comes and the Taj is finally revealed.

Guarding it in these final hours without being allowed to see it isn't considered an enviable job so it's given to the guards at the bottom of the food chain: Friends Humayun (Maanuv Thiara) and Babur (Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain) have the final shift. The latter isn't really known for his discretion, so his friend is nervous as Babur muses on beauty, both in the abstract and in the present situation, as well as on the people bringing it to life: He's a big fan of the building's lead architect, but Humayun worries that affording credit for the achievement to anyone other than the Emperor himself will be considered treasonous. Later they discuss the rumours of what will happen to all the construction workers, before realising that the brutal act is likely to be given to the lowest-ranking guards - and that's them.

The opening scene risks being very visually static as it involves two men standing guard (who aren't really meant to be talking either,) so I appreciated Karim's conceit that every few minutes a signal would sound for them to ritually change positions, moving around Roisin Jenner's central platform and letting all the in-the-round audience be acknowledged by the actors - I do like a director who spots the practical pitfalls and deals with them creatively.

Joseph's play has a number of tonal shifts once it becomes apparent the comic feel of the opening will be replaced by something darker. The central event isn't shown but it's described in quite some detail, and there's plenty of blood and gore to remind us of what the characters have gone through. Eventually the story becomes one of how what they've had to do has affected, and possibly broken, the cheery young men we met at the start.

This afternoon's performance had to be stopped for a technical problem at an unfortunately crucial moment, that affected the pace that had built up, but Hussain and Thiara did manage to get the energy levels back up to make the grislier sections work: For all that the mood and context changes throughout the play the themes of beauty, power, and how the latter gatekeeps the former remain constant; so we're left with a play whose more philosophical concerns are never far from the surface, couched in a watchably unpredictable story whose characters we want to see do well - but suspect they might not.

Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph is booking until the 16th of November at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Lidia Crisafulli.