Theatre review: A Personal War

Published on Thursday 13 August 2009 19:08

A PERSONAL WAR – (STORIES OF THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS) – FREE LAUGHING HORSE @ THE HIVE (VENUE 313)

IT'S less than nine months since ten young men from Pakistan arrived by boat on a beach near Mumbai's most famous hotel, and, over a terrible 72 hours, mounted a series of shootings and bombings in restaurants, hotels and public places around the city centre that left almost 200 people dead. To a city that had recently been enjoying a colossal economic boom and a growing sense of power and freedom, the cruel negativity of these attacks on random groups of undefended civilians came as a terrible psychological shock; and the depth of that shock is clearly visible in this remarkable show by a company of seven actors from Mumbai, playing at The Hive until Saturday.

A Personal War is not in any way a flawless show, or a polished one, and its politics are more impulsive than well thought-through. We hear nothing from Mumbai's poor, who might well themselves feel resentful of those dining in hotels like the Taj and the Oberoi; and the show is raising funds not for patient peace-building, but to improve the training and equipment of Mumbai's police.

But the show's seven interwoven monologues, based on real interviews with survivors, still offer a memorable glimpse of a hugely dynamic 21st-century Indian city stopped in its tracks, for a moment, by the sheer venom of the Islamist assault.

By the end of the show, even the silliest and most self-obsessed of the characters have learned to place a higher value on the busy, thoughtless civil peace they had previously taken for granted. And some have learned that the right response to terror is not fear but defiance; and a determination to keep living, loving, trading and creating freely together, as human beings at their best have always done.

Until tomorrow. Today 1pm.