On the evening of August 25, the sparse audience at G.D. Birla Sabhaghar was treated to a masterclass in method acting, à la Konstantin Stanislavski, by Rage Productions. Jointly presented by Sanskriti Sagar and Centre Stage Creations, this Mumbai-based group brought Iron to the city. Written by Rona Munro, a gifted Scottish playwright with a penchant for discovering the unfamiliar within the familiar, this exceptionally intense prison drama, involving a middle-aged mother serving a life term for killing her husband and a daughter who visits her mother after a decade and a half, poses several intriguing questions.
Besides crime and punishment, Iron dissects the mother-daughter relationship with a gory past thrown in between. The borders of sanity and insanity are negotiated. Memories and nightmares often overlap. Staged in a closely-guarded prison cell which is claustrophobic in essence — a claustrophobia accentuated by the hair-raising clang of steel doors — Iron offered little respite to its actors and audience. It demanded optimum concentration from both. Its success rests primarily on maintaining that level of concentration for more than two hours, with a brief interval. Only the patch of green, on the stage down left, offered some breathing space.
Directed by Arghya Lahiri, who keeps the lights under check and the movements restricted, the drama unfolded like a series of revelations — unexpected at times and unnerving towards the climax. Shernaz Patel, playing Fay, the mother, gave an understated performance. In the scenes where she meets her daughter, Josie (Dilnaz Irani), Patel displayed a range of emotions that touched a raw nerve. As a young woman struggling to collect herself following a divorce and a job switch, Irani delivered a solid act that embraced vulnerability quietly as the play progressed. Although their conversations formed the backbone of Iron, the prison guards, played meticulously by Meher Acharia-Dar and Lahiri himself, performed the double role of surveillance mechanisms and empathizers.
A special mention must be made for the sound engineers. The acoustics of the auditorium have rarely sounded so crisp and clean.
