Tom Stoppard's time-hopping drama enjoys an evocative revival
The sad passing of Tom Stoppard last month adds a particular poignancy to this revival of Indian Ink, his intriguing drama set in two different time periods. And it is a real joy that Felicity Kendal, who was in the original 1995 production, has returned, playing a different central character. She established the role of Flora Crewe, the lively young Bloomsbury Group poet travelling in India in 1930, who has her portrait painted by local artist Nirad Das (here Gavi Singh Chera). Now she plays Flora’s younger sister Eleanor in the 1980s, who is visited by Nirad’s son Anish (Aaron Gill), as she makes it her mission to read and bring order to her sister's letters. Flora (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis making the role her own from the getgo), an evident life force in that earlier time period, is defiantly fighting a terminal illness, so it's no spoiler to reveal that she predeceases her younger sister by some decades.
From the opening, it is clear that the sisters are close, keeping in touch by letter, even as Flora travels by train across India, which must have been quite an achievement in 1930. That affection is still live and vital to Eleanor 50 years later, as she works with those precious letters and other tantalising clues. The portraits, for instance, of which there are three: the one by Nirad as well as two nudes, one of which is by Modigliani and presumed destroyed. It is unsurprising that Eleanor is determined to suss out their stories. She is hindered rather than helped in her mission by the irritatingly pushy Eldon Pike (played wonderfully by Donald Sage Mackay), an ambitious journalist who has spotted the potential of writing Flora's biography.
There is a depth of background narrative that explores the often uneasy relationship between the British, their Empire and their ‘hosts’ on the subcontinent. Colonialism is an important part of the story for Stoppard who, having left his birth country Czechoslovakia as a Jewish child refugee fleeing the Nazis, spent three years at a Darjeeling boarding school before eventually settling in England after World War II. Perhaps this is why his Indian characters are both convincing and especially well drawn, self-assured and courteous, from Nirad and Anish to Nazrul, the only named servant among a bevy, all played by Sushant Shekhar.
One of the sheer delights of the production is the beauty of the English country garden setting by designer Leslie Travers (and lit by Peter Mumford), in which Kendal’s Eleanor is focused on the legacy of letters and portraits that Flora has left behind. And Jonathan Kent’s direction is exemplary in bringing all the threads together in this story that not only grabs, but keeps the audience's attention from start to finish.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Johan Persson
Indian Ink runs until Saturday 7 February. 7.30pm, 2pm (Thu & Sat only). From £32.50. Hampstead Theatre, London, NW3 3EU. 020 7722 9301. hampsteadtheatre.com