{"id":71627,"date":"2025-05-08T11:04:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T02:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2025\/may\/08\/the-wrong-gods-review-absorbing-drama-tackles-dark-chapter-in-indias-history"},"modified":"2025-05-08T11:04:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T02:04:32","slug":"the-wrong-gods-review-absorbing-drama-tackles-dark-chapter-in-indias-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=71627","title":{"rendered":"The Wrong Gods review \u2013 absorbing drama tackles dark chapter in India\u2019s history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney; then heading to Melbourne<br \/><\/strong>Counting and Cracking creator S Shakthidharan uses family and fable to examine epic ideas in this story of a community under threat<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/newsletters\/2019\/oct\/18\/saved-for-later-sign-up-for-guardian-australias-culture-and-lifestyle-email?CMP=cvau_sfl\">Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email<\/a><strong><br \/><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Having made his name with the hugely successful Counting and Cracking \u2013 an epic three-hour work spanning multiple generations and featuring a massive set, 16 performers and many more characters \u2013 the Sydney playwright S Shakthidharan has downsized in his latest play. The Wrong Gods covers just seven years over 100 minutes, with four actors on an almost bare stage. But do not be deceived: this is an ambitious work with big ideas on its mind. It tilts at nothing less than the history of capitalism and impacts of modernity.<\/p>\n<p>Our setting is riverside in a valley in India, surrounded by a bountiful forest \u2013 a kind of prelapsarian paradise. Here we meet Nirmala (Nadie Kammallaweera, the star of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture\/article\/2024\/jun\/20\/counting-and-cracking-how-a-three-hour-sri-lankan-war-epic-became-one-of-the-great-australian-plays\">Counting and Cracking<\/a> and its sequel, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2022\/nov\/18\/the-jungle-and-the-sea-review-sri-lankan-civil-war-drama-lifts-joy-above-trauma\">The Jungle and the Sea<\/a>), a farmer and the head of her village\u2019s council, and her precocious teen daughter, Isha (Radhika Mudaliyar, another Counting and Cracking alum), an aspiring scientist.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/stage\/2025\/may\/08\/the-wrong-gods-review-absorbing-drama-tackles-dark-chapter-in-indias-history\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney; then heading to MelbourneCounting and Cracking creator S Shakthidharan uses family and fable to examine epic ideas in this story of a community under threatGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailHaving made his name with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4598,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,3245,71,65,767,653,62,3306,61,878,355,877,827],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia-news","category-australian-theatre","category-culture","category-environment","category-environmental-activism","category-farming","category-india","category-rising-festival","category-south-and-central-asia","category-stage","category-sydney","category-theatre","category-water"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71628,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71627\/revisions\/71628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}