Kali Theatre

PaperThin (March 2006)
by Azma Dar
Directed by Janet Steel

Mushtaq's student visa is about to run out but he's desperate to stay in London so he can support his family back home. Working two jobs back to back he saves enough money to pay Laila, who has a flourishing business in arranging marriages of convenience. But Mushtaq's dreams of a perfect life with a perfect wife are shattered by the reality of greed as Laila's cunning plans unfold…

Paper Thin takes fresh and unconventional look at the complexities of immigration and the lengths one man is prepared to go to fulfill his dreams.

Bells (2005)
by Yasmin Whittaker Khan
Directed by Poonam Brah

Bells takes us into the seedy world of Mujra (courtesan) clubs, a centuries old tradition in Pakistan which is now growing in Britain. A butcher’s shop by day and a brothel by night, Bells has all the sparkle of Lollywood but the glitz and glamour is tarnished by the pain and degradation of secret lives. Is love possible in a place where flesh is bought and sold?

Chaos (2005)
by Azma Dar
Directed by Janet Steel

Mr Rizvi wants to be a local councillor. His disapproving wife is slowly loosing her grip. Auntie Moona, the friendly neighbour always turns up when least wanted. His eldest son harbours a guilty secret. And then his youngest son announces he plans to go and fight in Afghanistan. Mr Rizvi’s dreams of a united world are thrown into turmoil by events following 9/11.

A dark frantic comedy about the collapse of understanding, both personal and political, in a world on the brink of madness.

"Chaos, a pithy and refreshingly unpolemical... response to the new world disorder."
Daily Telegraph

Calcutta Kosher (2004)
by Shelley Silas

Two sisters return to the crumbling Calcutta home of their childhood. When family secrets are revealed the women are forced to re-examine their relationship with their mother and the reality of their own lives in the light of a hidden past.

Set in the Indian Jewish community, this funny and moving play explores conflicts between old and new, east and west, tradition and truth. Award winning writer Shelley Silas examines how family and culture, time and distance, influence our sense of who we are. If the past is another country, where is home?

“fine performances in Janet Steel’s moving production… There’s plenty of humour too…. and emotional intensity.”
Time Out

“ an elegiac hymn to a disappearing world. Its emphasis on reconciliation and harmony also lends it as an unusual sweetness of temper… strongly defined performances...”
The Guardian

Opened at Southwark Playhouse before a UK tour including Huddersfield LBT, Nottingham Lakeside, Birmingham Rep, Bradford Alhambra, Cambridge Mumford and Manchester Contact.

Sock ‘em With Honey (2003)
by Bapsi Sidhwa
National Tour directed by Janet Steel

Feroza is blissfully happy with David, her Jewish boyfriend. But her Parsee family is not so ecstatic when they decide to marry as Feroza must then give up her religion. Spurred on by granny, a forceful matriarch who sharpens her tongue in the knife drawer, Feroza’s mother is sent to London to talk sense into her. Here she is torn between a mother’s love for her daughter and her duty to family and faith. But her attempts to derail the lovers provokes David into reasserting his own cultural roots.

Caught in the middle of this clash of cultures and expectations, Feroza must resolve her love, loyalties and her need to belong…

Sock ‘em With Honey was adapted from Bapsi Sidhwa’s celebrated novel, The American Brat.

“The play combines perfectly the different aspects of eastern and western culture … a charming and expertly told story… don’t miss it”
Asian Voice

“ ….profound, charming and often witty”
The Stage

“…neatly designed production well served by a series of excellent performances”
Time Out

Singh Tangos (2001)
by Bettina Gracias
National Tour directed by Caroline Ward

Mr Singh wants his family to soak up English culture. So Mrs Singh takes up ballroom dancing and discovers the liberating effect of rhythm. Their son Tej disapproves of this brazenly forward attitude. He’s obsessed with becoming a respected doctor and wants to practice on everybody he meets. Their daughter Cassie hates her parents modernity and demands an arranged marriage. When Mrs Singh enters the local dance competition, Mr Singh thinks this a step too far…

This deceptively light-hearted satirical comedy takes a sideways look at what it is to fit in and feel at home. Must migrants transform themselves in order to integrate and be happy? Is it possible to be completely traditional and survive? Is full integration the best way?

“Explores the paradoxes of Sikhism in suburbia with a pleasing sense of the absurd, but stays cool enough to make some poignant observations on the way…… the laughs come thick and fast and by the end you can’t help but cheer…”
Metro

“ Broad, amiable, comedy, with wry observations on second-generation British Asians”
Time Out

River on Fire (2000-2001)
by Rukhsana Ahmad
London Lyric Studio 2000 and National Tour 2001
Directed by Helena Uren

Kiran, a young British Asian actress from London is recruited by an Indian film director to play the part of Shola, a Mogul Antigone. But the death of her screenwriter aunt, throws her life into turmoil by putting her into direct conflict with her Indian cousins and forces her to grapple with communalism as it spills over into her life.

Set against the Bombay riots of December 1992 in which an astonishing 46 people were killed, this is a contemporary re-working of the ancient myth, Antigone; still relevant to our times, particularly in a South Asian context where communalism still continues to divide us. Stories emerge from the ashes of the fires that engulfed Bombay.

River on Fire was shortlisted for the 2002 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

“ ripe with tensions… this very able cast tell the story of how family squabbles … can become highly political when religion is involved…. it stays with you….”
Time Out

“ Excellent to see Kali Theatre proving as innovative yet mainstream as ever.”
The Stage