The Father and the Assassin - National Theatre

I'm going Sat night..

Saw this tonight and thoroughly recommend: the Gandhi assassination is given the "Amadeus" treatment, with Shubham Saraf's assassin, Nathuram Godse, a roguish, surprisingly winning, monologuing chip-on-the-shoulder Salieri-type gradually boiling over with resentment about Paul Bazeley's surprisingly mischievous and spritely Gandhi's supposed betrayal of India's majority Hindu population. The epic and the personal are beautifully intertwined in a complex yet clear story about the war between humanism and nationalism for India's soul.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Watching this, I was reminded of Andy Nyman's Charles Guiteau in Sondheim's "Assassins" at the Menier. He was the one assassin in the show completely exultant about the murder he committed, the most convinced of the righteousness of his actions, and consequently, the most disarming, charming and exuberant of assassins, albeit utterly deluded in his reasoning.

Shubham Saraf's Godse is a lot like Guiteau, except, like Mark Rylance's equally conspiratorial and ebullient Richard III, he has his wits about him, and has a nationalist argument to make that is even more dangerously seductive than anything Rylance's self-serving Richard had to say.

Saraf has experience of personalising epic stories, having carried half the burden of the Bush Theatre's 50-year-spanning 3-hour "An Adventure" a few years ago, and he really is magnetic and magnificent here, firmly anchoring and colouring this epic story, of India's fight for independence, of its partition, and of Gandhi's tragic assassination, with Godse's personal and nationalist obsessions. It's a career defining role for Saraf!

Indeed, the only weakness of this wonderful production, for me, is when Saraf's Godse is sidelined for more generic storytelling, familiar from the Attenborough Gandhi movie, which ironically, this play explicitly mocks lol.

Anyway, Paul Bazeley, who played Jinnah, in Hampstead Theatre's more prosaic and detailed play about India's partition, "Drawing the Line," is a terrific foil for Saraf, here, as Gandhi. Bazeley's Gandhi is excitable, inspiring, mischievous and energetic, even as he successfully embodies the weighty, worthy and wise qualities you expect from a Gandhi.

There is wonderful support for the two leads: from Sagar Arya as the cutthroat godfather of Hindu nationalism, Savarkar; from Tony Jawardena as Godse's well-meaning father; from Sid Sagar as Godse's fiery co-conspirator, Apte; from Dinita Gohil as Godse's wily and right-on childhood friend, Vimala; and most of all, from Ankur Bahl, as many ordinary people, indignantly and hilariously (and camply) trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times!

The bare bones set, of an empty space with some stairs at the back, with a metaphorical backdrop of a loom trying (and failing) to weave India's many threads together, is all one needs for a production that focuses on characters and events, but most satisfyingly, on the often twisted yet apparently truthful motivations lurking within those characters and events.

Aside from the moments where Saraf's Godse was sidelined, I also found slightly jarring evident departures from the details of known historical events (eg the style and circumstances of the assassination itself), yet those departures serve the production's purpose, and overall, I found this show dazzling and thought-provoking, one of the best shows of the year so far. In my opinion.

4 and a half stars from me.

I am hearing this production hasn't been an instant hit. Which makes me twice as excited to go watch it next week.

Saw it tonight, and thought it was stunning.

Apparently it’s not been selling amazingly well but word of mouth has been excellent so they’re predicting it’ll do well as word continues to spread.

Just word of mouth - I've been hearing there were vacant seats but sales are supposedly picking up now with the reviews starting to come out. I am glad you liked it. I have high expectations for it myself, can't wait to go watch it next week.

I saw Saturday's matinee and left it a few days before commenting to see if my view changed, but I still feel rather less impressed by this than others. Yes, it was a perfectly decent production and I certainly enjoyed being in the lovely Olivier for once - in a comfortable and spacious aisle seat rather than being crammed into the horrible Lyttelton - and in the atmosphere created by a pretty full house. But the play itself? Necessarily shallow and broad given its epic scope but for me there was too much style and too little content. I'd have preferred greater depth and discussion of fewer issues. This seemed more of an opportunity for the NT to show what it can do on a big stage with an ensemble production and it certainly ticked that box, but for treatment of the one of the subjects, I preferred the Hampstead version.

Another thumbs up from me for the NT - they’re definitely back on track, this was very enjoyable (though I wouldn’t rate it as highly as I did The Corn is Green). Shubham Saraf in particular was great. Worth a watch!

I am on the side of those who quite liked this: I found it thoroughly entertaining, interesting, well acted and overall a quite lovely evening at the theatre. Time sort of flew by. 

I do agree with Dave B about the character of Gandhi being a little flat, but I ascribed that to the difficulty of portraying him as a man rather than a caricature. Too much "historical weight" in that sense.

I do wonder what this would have looked like to me if I knew more about the history - I always wonder this when plays are (even loosely) based on real events. What does this look like to someone who is personally affected by the situation? (Perhaps because I come from a part of Europe that is a frequent theme in cultural creation, and I very often don't really like the way the situation is portrayed, as it tends to get romanticised...) 

But overall, I would recommend this. 

I was also in the row D rush seats yesterday afternoon!

I do not want to start a long discussion but am very disappointed at the words used by the prev member ( this time tomorrow) about the director, actors all being Indian.
I don’t know Indu but Wiki says she was born in Sheffield to Tamil parents. Does she therefore qualify as Indian?
I was born in Uganda to parents who had been born in India
I have been in UK 50 yrs
If I had been an actor on stage, would I also have been referred to as an Indian?

Thankyou
I appreciate your reply
A

The Father and the Assassin, as with many an epic tale, suffers from having too broad a brush, the effect being that characters and event details are rendered quite superficially.

Despite a fine, wall-breaking performance from Shubham Saraf as the titular bad guy, I am not sure I really learnt from Anupama Chandrasekhar's script what motivated his character, Nathuram Godse. I think the takeaway was that he was just a screwed-up kid, which seemed too simplistic.

The gratuitous hint at one moment by the director that the killer was homosexually attracted to his partner in politics/crime was unnecessary. If that was really part of Godse's psyche, then let's explore it; don't just randomly suggest it.

Paul Bazely makes a good fist of Gandhi, although, rightly or wrongly, I had always pictured the Indian leader as being a lot less tall.

The events move at pace, backwards and forwards in time, and the piece is not uninteresting.

Three stars.

Act 1: 19:35-20:40
Act 2: 21:03-21:59
(Shorter than the advertised 2:35, so I wonder if there have been some significant cuts?)