Donmar Warehouse and Tara Theatre will present the world première of Silence, a new play adapted from Kavita Puri’s Partition Voices: Untold British Stories.
Written by Sonali Bhattacharyya, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Ishy Din, and Alexandra Wood, the production will first play the Donmar September 1–17 followed by an engagement at the Tara that begins September 21 and continues through October 1.
Tara Theatre Artistic Director Abdul Shayek will helm the production, featuring Renu Brindle, Sujaya Dasgupta, Nimmi Harasgama, Bhasker Patel, Jay Saighal, Rehan Sheikh, and Martin Turner.
The production marks 75 years since the 1947 Partition of India—which saw millions uprooted and resulted in unspeakable violence—examining the legacy this brutal moment in history leaves us with today.
Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Michael Longhurst said, “We are delighted to be collaborating with Tara Theatre for the first time with this vital new play, specially commissioned to mark the 75th anniversary of the Partition of India. The play tells the remarkable true stories of those involved in such a key moment in history, inspired by extraordinary testimony and acknowledging events that need to be spoken of in Britain.”
Tara Theatre's Shayek added, "As Britain holds up a mirror to its colonial history that has shaped our present day reality, many of us are asking questions of our past and who we are. 2022 provides us with the last big milestone before we lose the survivors and their living memory, giving us the chance to understand the human cost of what occurred in 1947, retelling the stories of those who survived Partition and came to the U.K. As a group of storytellers, we will try to capture the unbiased documentation of these stories in Kavita's book and the very real need to recognize that this is a shared history, this is our shared history, a British story regardless of the color of your skin."
The production will also have designs by Rose Revitt, lighting design by Ciarán Cunningham, sound design and music by composer Elena Peña, and casting by Anna Cooper.
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