Review by Azma Dar

“A Thin Red Line” is the most recent play by Kali Theatre, a company that focuses completely on new writing by Asian women. Having been fortunate enough to have had two plays produced by Kali myself, I’m always keen to keep up with their latest work.

This piece is a collaboration between Kali, Birmingham Rep and Black County Touring, and was drawn from a series of workshops involving the writer, Sonali Bhattarchayya, and a range of community groups from the Black County. The idea of “partitions” was used as a starting point, it being the 60th anniversary of the creation of India and Pakistan. The play asks whether partitions still exist in Britain today, and uses racial divisions in the Black County region to highlight this theme.

It tells the story of Irfan (Pushpinder Channi), a young British born Pakistani, married to a white girl, Pamela (Rebecca Clarke). They’ve left their home town due to the negative attention that their relationship has attracted from their families and within their social circles. Now, however, Pamela’s mother is seriously ill, and encouraged by Irfan, they go “back home” to visit her.

The confrontation with her past is both painful and nostalgic, and brings home the isolation that she and Irfan feel in the present. The separations between the communities are brought out through the characters of Sameena (Bharti Patel), the inquisitive “aunty” with whom they are staying, and John (Greg Hobbs), the mother’s only friend, who is tough but basically kind hearted. They are both racist in their own ways, and have problems with each other as well as with Pamela, who has converted to Islam and is now not accepted by either. Sameena thinks she is not capable of fully embracing the Muslim/Pakistani culture, (although Pamela seems to pray more regularly than either Sameena or Irfan), while John can’t understand why she has chosen to adopt this strange lifestyle, deliberately alienating herself from her own. In terms of the portrayal of race and intercultural marriage issues, the aspect I found most intriguing was this depiction of a white Muslim woman, and it would have been fascinating to have seen this explored further.

I was equally interested in Sameena, who, despite her flaws and prejudices, is witty and perceptive, but also lonely. She seems torn between remaining in England, where she is independent, or migrating to Pakistan to be with her family. Bharti Patel played the role with warmth and humour, providing relief to the anger in the rest of the play that at times became too overpowering.

Greg Hobbs was also convincing as the frustrated John, who struggles with his natural, emotional instincts and his inbred social narrow mindedness.

Janet Steel made great use of a very minimal set, which consisted only of four large blocks, moving them cleverly within the space to symbolise the various partitions that exist in the play. Despite an occasional scene or two that felt a little too long, Sonali Bhattarchayya’s script was sensitive and thought provoking, questioning the existence of barriers that we sometimes think of as acceptable.

Azma Dar is a playwright and describes herself as ”doing a bit of writing and art, but mainly the mother of three girls, aged 11,9 and 1”