Counting and Cracking
Birmingham Rep
 

FRESH from the Edinburgh Festival and bearing plaudits and awards from its homeland, this multinational production from Australia is a tale of reconnecting with one’s roots however painful and traumatic they may be.

Focusing largely but not exclusively on Sri Lankan immigrants to Australia, this sweeping epic spans three generations from 1956 post-colonial Ceylon and the rise to dominance of the Sinhalese community through the 1970s Tamil Tigers’ insurgence and the wave of suffering and forced migration that ensued up to 2004 and a first-generation Australian youngster alienated from his family’s history, language and culture.

Shiv Palekar plays the troubled young man, distanced from his overprotective mother and faced with the emotional challenge of dealing with the Tamil ritual of scattering his grandmother’s ashes to the waters, along with the excitement and questions of a new relationship with an indigenous Australian girlfriend far more in touch with her heritage.

Generations separated by strife and non-communication begin to reassemble with his enquiries and reinvolvement in his feisty mother’s life and the re-emergence of her husband 21 years after his tragic disappearance during the Sri Lankan civil war.

This three-hour-plus production is beautifully told. It unfolds gently at first with humour and sensitivity, relying not on effects and scenery but on the narrators and their dramatic skills to embody the family.

The international cast of 19 create a landscape that becomes increasingly foreboding as the events that forced them from their homeland are revisited.

Writer S Shakthidharan and director Eamon Flack create an experience for the audience that invites us to join the young man on his journey of self-discovery and exploration of how national events shape individual lives.

The whole evening is an immersion in Sri Lankan culture, with traditional instruments accompanying much of the action, bright flowing costumes and ceremonies and even national food being served up to the whole audience at the first interval.

There are issues with the clarity of the translators especially when the action peaks or the stage becomes convoluted, but these are minor irritants in a production of rare simplicity, graceful beauty and profound significance.

Runs until August 27, box-office: birmingham-rep.co.uk.