There is an austere yet absorbing quality to Vikram Phukan's THOSE LEFT BEHIND THINGS, a play on Iranian asylum seekers in the UK. This is no docudrama but rather a tender look at the journey of a young man Hamid who has had to leave his home to venture into a foreign land. There is no choice in the matter for he is an escapee whose only hope is to find safer, if not better circumstances abroad. It is a fictionalised account but inspired by real life incidents that the writer witnessed during his own time in the UK. These are terrible incidents. Yet in the play the terror has been suppressed on purpose it seems. In its place one would find a delicate, episodic unfolding of this young man's destiny and of others like him; his namesakes even.
Gandharv Dewan and Rushab Kamdar play Hamid and the other characters through various chapters that are less sequential than they are exploratory of a particular moment and emotion in Hamid's life. These oscillate between the memory of Tehran and Hamid's situation in the UK dragged on by bureaucratic formalities on the one hand and racial discrimination on the other; of squalid living, and trying to fit in; of moments of humour and anger, culminating in the ultimate decision of the asylum that may be granted or withheld.
Both Gandharv and Rushab are hands-on actors in a sparse production that almost completely relies on their personas and performances to engage. Activities are mimed now and then, while property becomes a crucial as well as symbolic tool, especially the two backpacks. This is a life in transit and on edge. It is lived on the margins. It is in these subtle references, and in memory and longing made bearable by the few moments of fragile companionship, that the play's ethos takes shape.
Hamid is also homosexual and thus another layer to an already complex existence is added. Perhaps one of the evocative aspects of the play actualised in production, is the sheer ease with which gay love is depicted. It has almost a serene, charming, and playful quality to it, and is one of the scenes in which both the actors demonstrably show their comfort with each other. Eventually, the lovers' quarrel only hinted at becomes yet another point marking Hamid's unsettled journey.
The writing, which largely draws on the personal, is insightful, but the words at times are overdone with their poetic/philosophical overtones. Besides, most of it is played out in the realm of the stated and the obvious. This is not much the case of the "personal is the political", and in a sense stunts the play's premise. This is after all about a young man who is Muslim, Iranian, and gay in a foreign country. These interlocking identities are more problematic and nuanced than the play lets on. Yet empathy has been struck. Post interval, the episodes unravel more fully and with pathos. The situation is moving, telling, and even blunt enough. Human Rights for instance are more abused than acted on, as one of the actors takes the piss literally and metaphorically. The writing gains largely by a heartfelt production and the credit for this goes to the two actors and to the director (the writer himself). Evidently there has been a process of reflection, deliberation and fine-tuning.
Can the things the play speaks of be really left behind even as a new life may take over? A life that might go beyond the token beer, pubs, and dangerous neighbourhoods? There is optimism but it is a shield without which such life would be even more unbearable.
THOSE LEFT BEHIND THINGS is effectively a sincere portrait on stage of those escaping persecution, aggression, war or displacement. They are forced to knock on strange doors and enter even stranger lands, that is, if they are lucky. Mother is not a thing, and nor is Tehran. But there is no point in being sentimental as one Hamid must now claim his space, even as the other must retreat.
*Deepa Punjani has been writing on theatre and performance for close to two decades. She represents the Indian National Section of Theatre Critics, which is part of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) that has over 50 participating countries.
