Mughal history play meets courtroom drama

Daniel Nelson

Dara is a British Asian mix of courtroom drama and Shakespearean history play performed with curved swords and fortune-telling fakirs, as though 12 Angry Men was inserted between Henry V1 Parts 1 and 2.

And though the 17^th century Mughal family intrigues, the swishing of silk and the Islamic latticework are lovely to look at, the trial scene knocks them into a cocked turban.

The outcome of the legal battle is a predetermined political fix, but the verbal sparring between the tolerant Dara and the prosecutor representing his austere brother, Aurangzeb, is absorbing and wittily staged and as relevant today as it was three centuries ago.

The argument is not new but it’s important. In the West it’s often compared with the divide between literalist Christian adherents to the Bible and those who see it as divinely inspired but sometimes metaphorical, as the truth but not necessarily true. As British-Pakistani journalist Anwar Akhtar of the Samosa Media Project writes in his programme note: “For the power games in South Asia and the Middle East today, and the different interpretations of religious texts, we can see parallels with the religious schisms of tensions of 16^th-century Europe, with Elizabeth, Walsingham, Drake, Mary and Spain.”

In any case, the trial is by far the most absorbing part of a play originally written by often-jailed Pakistan playwright Shahid Nadeem. He is currently executive director of a leading Pakistani theatre company, Ajoka Theatre, known for its commitment to tackling corruption, gender and rights themes.

His Urdu play was workshopped and researched and adapted over a period of two years by a National Theatre writer and director.

The National doesn’t quite bring it off: the second half is better than the rapid but uninspiring opening scenes but fails to hit the heights of the apostasy trial. Everyone works hard but the spark isn’t there.

Nevertheless, it’s a bold attempt, there’s enjoyment to be had, and it extends horizons: “Dara is about more than a succession war between Mughal princes,” says Anwar Akhtar. “It is about what India was, what it became, and the beginning of Pakistan.

“It is a view amongst some historians and writers in South Asia that particular seeds for the later violent partition of Pakistan from India were planted by the events of Dara’s life.”

·         Dara is at the National Theatre, South Bank, London, SE1, until 4 April. Info: 7452 3000

Talks

+ 26 January, Shahid Nadeem and Anwar Akhtar, 6pm

+ 18 March, Nadia Fall and Tanya Ronder on Dara talk about the production

Dara

Image by National Theatre

, 6pm