Last night was the official opening night of Ahilan Karunaharan’s play: A Mixtape for Maladies, in its Auckland Theatre Company season. One of the privileges of reviewing for theatre is to be seated front and central, but I was turned in my seat to admire the crowd, as musicians Ben Fernandez and Seyorn Arunagirinathan arrived on stage. I found there, the sizable community that a still-fresh legacy of Karunaharan’s works of the last eight years or so, has drawn around itself like a new citadel. A beautifully turned-out crowd filled the house in support of a very beautiful play.

The play shares such joy and pride in equal amounts and my gaze is met by some who already hold such knowledge of the play and its people and wider history in their faces, they are beaming with that pride and joy before the show begins.  The clue to this is in the title, but even if you know what a mixtape is, and are not certain of what the ‘maladies’ are, you should see the show, and you will find it a remedy for maladies of all kinds.

As the opening scenes unfold, I can sense the audience immediately near me who are Tamil as they told me later, (and of a certain age, mine), respond profoundly in recognition of the songs, the events, and the parochialisms of a Kiwi-Tamil family. It becomes immediately apparent that the fusion of song, sound and design in this show is going to fulfil all aspirations to an effect of transportation. But first of all, my deep respect goes to the musicians who in their music meet performers in such poignant and exquisitely crafted renditions of these songs that the union of voice and instrument is full of narratives. Even for an audience member without Tamil or Hindi language. Fernandez plays keyboards, and Arunagirinathan plays the Carnatic violin tradition most exquisitely.  (By the way there is a ‘mixtape: the B-side’ event for those who want to hear more on the 20^{th of} March after the show, no bookings required! And if you’re not accustomed to Tamil style music, you’re in for a treat).

After the play opens and the first scene draws us in to the the show Karunahan arrives on stage and approaches the microphone to sing, but his voice is momentarily tempered by an enthusiastic impromptu ovation from the crowd. Quickly they restrain their voices, and the crooning melody of the first song begins to take its effect.  The podcast is a very effective interim vehicle for this journey, in which we are transported first by glimpses into the past, like falling headlong into the memories of the past, and then ultimately this guise delivers us more deeply into the stories within the podcast, all the while reflecting on the two characters of the play who inhabit our contemporary reality here in Aotearoa: Shaan Kesha’s comically earnest Deepan, and his mum, Sangeetha who is dubious about reaching back in time to divulge her stories.

After the show, the foyer was shoulder to shoulder with the crowd hoping to see the cast come out to join them.  One by one the actors come out and are happily absorbed into the waiting arms of friends and family and fans for photos and congratulations. After a short tim, I look behind me, I realize Karunaharan had arrived, unnoticed, and is observing the crowd quietly. I take the opportunity to break the anonymity and congratulate him in person. Very quickly the others near us swing around extending their arms to embrace him.

I have watched the development of this play and Karunaharan’s work from afar, but I hadn’t seen any previous renditions of Mixtape. The play being entirely new to me is a blessing, because I am able to revel in the unfolding story in a complete way. I do think that this is the ideal way to experience it. As I’ve said, the quality of evocative storytelling created by the writing and design and music is moving and very effective as a storytelling vehicle. The Podcast frames the deeper story and allows us an incremental immersion into those stories.   The acting style is bold, overt, and very funny. Sometimes jubilantly and comically determined by humour, touches of Kollywood and even simply pure joy, the performances are framed in latticework with the songs.

You may think the potential would be there for the performances to be weakened if reduced to upholding that connection through music, but the story itself, with writing into the very peaks and troughs of audience expectation just doesn’t allow for that. It’s a musical ostensibly, but it’s a delicately balanced excerpt from an Epic really. This is a mixtape and with innate poetry, it is like a mixtape: carefully curated. It’s cleverly made by the whole team and what seems, a simple surface, opens to reveal depths of further storytelling, as if you are allowed glimpses into Sangeetha’s very memory and can travel back to Sri Lanka, 1989 by yourself and look around her remembered world a bit more.

The design work deserves special tribute, (and this is it). I am presuming that set design has been masterminded by the Filament 11 team: Rachel Marlow and Bradley Gledhill, as Production designers, and it is so so charming. The very first glimpse, is an immersion into the world of the Sri Lankan story (on an odd angle and as if via an old photo possibly or as in a memory). Looking up a flight of those red steps, that is one of the few things I know that characterizes a house in that part of the world. Or didn’t know I knew? The kinetic design is seamlessly evocative. I love immersive qualities. And that is just the beginning. That’s what I love about seeing a play like this that is fully ensconced in a production company like this entirely for the first time. So will others.

Bala Murali Shingade characterizes Sangeetha’s worldly and romantic desires as Anton the local shopkeeper, with perfect deportment and presence, and plays Suthan also, the family friend. I actually didn’t realize this. There is no flaw in the choreographed stage management or timing so it’s on a need-to-know basis, I guess!

Tiahli Martyn, Sangeetha’s talented older sister, is very present in our borrowed memories also. And Sangeetha’s indignant, sweet, and ultimately brave, younger brother is similarly present for us thanks to Ravikanth Gurunathan’s charismatic performance. Ahilan Karunaharan brings a wonderfully devout, troubled, BUT very loving father figure, to this story, and because he is so very realistically portrayed, he remains too now in our shared memory.

In all parts of the story, sadness is managed, manipulated, evaporated, and held at bay in this well-crafted work, yet present, therefore. None more so than in the precise composures of the two playing Sangheetha. At the end of the play, I turn from the face of Gemma-Jayde Naidoo to the face of Ambika G.K.R with a poetic sense of the whole measurement of the counterpart of life held in the gaze they share. The powerful feminine.

Sometimes a crowd sits for a moment realizing the show has finished and becoming self-aware maybe still entranced by the stage, maybe with tears on their faces, and then they rise as one for a standing ovation.  This seemed to be one of those occasions. Like a flame everyone was standing.

I suppose that the next thing to do is to support this community to uphold the three plays of Karunaharan’s as a trilogy to be toured on international circuits.  The world needs these plays, I think. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Last evening I was reintroduced to the enigmatic power of memory. It’s the first time I’d thought about this since the morning – but that’s another story.

Yep, it’s always there, this memory thing, driving, singing, modifying, adapting, reminding.

A Mixtape for Maladies suggests that ‘memory is both a gift and a curse’. A young podcaster rewinds an heirloom cassette tape belonging to his Mum and, in so doing, opens the door to what we choose to hear, what we choose to remember, and what we choose to share.

And the journey begins – or do we just reconnect with what already exists?

You decide.

Memory, well mine anyway, can attack at any time. In fact, it’s impossible to turn it off. It’s aways there comparing, contrasting, juggling, complaining, adjusting, judging. ‘Yes, Clapton’s version is great but not a patch on the Allmans who I saw play that track back in the ‘60’s,’ and then the flash backs happen.

And the older we get the more they just pile up, they pile up like a nose to tail trainwreck. There are even those that we’ve forgotten which occasionally bounce back to slap us around the head – but that’s another story.

Maybe it’s this story.

Last evening I had the pleasure of attending the final preview of Auckland Theatre Company’s new main bill production A Mixtape of Maladies.

It’s outstanding in every way.

In fact, the entire theatregoing experience was.

History tells us that the box office can be a bottle neck of frustration for everyone. Last night, the box office staff were magnificent. My tickets were in my hand within ten seconds at the most, one young man, working alone to process an almost full house, and there were no queues, not grumpies, no screwups, just calm efficiency, and the entire experience was the same. Simply magic – and that young man deserves a reward.

The result was that I took my seat with my family really ready to enjoy the production.

The theatre was immaculate, the temperature perfect, the stage divine. It was incredibly impressive and, to use that overused cliché, world class. Even parking was easier than it’s ever been before.

‘Sit back and enjoy’ has never been easier to do.

So, what’s this A Mixtape of Maladies all about?

I could tell you, and I will, but another bouquet is for the ATC website.

For many – probably most – A Mixtape of Maladies will be a cultural experience that’s outside their regular bailiwick. That’s OK, and that shouldn’t stop you from getting off the couch and going to the theatre – you really should do that (get off the couch and go to the theatre) – but, while it’s a deceptively simple show, it’s cultural back story and political backdrop are anything but. The more you know the greater the enjoyment so surf the website you’ll find a tonne of information about the narrative, the artists, the creatives, the whole experience – there’s a copy of the informative programme online (and you can also pick up a hard copy at the theatre for free) – and it’s all available just for you.

I repeat, this is an outstanding production but it’s well outside most of our personal experience. Don’t let this impact your decision to go because the politics are only a backdrop to an intensely personal family story that’s extremely accessible. As my son – who loved it -said ‘it could be anywhere. The fact that it’s happening in Sri Lanka is important, but it could be anywhere.’

Tautoko that!

In 1965, in my first year of teaching (twelve-year-olds), we started each day with thirty minutes of ‘social studies’ – learning capital cities, recognising flags, naming leaders – and Ceylon was a favourite, so I knew a wee bit about the content of the show. Memory again. As an obsessive politics junkie – anything to do with Republicanism flicks my switch – some of the rest came back, having been embedded deep in my recesses for decades.

Ceylon first became a dominion and then, in 1972, the republic of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s maturing was tarnished by a twenty-six-year Civil War which began in 1983 and ended in 2009 when the Sri Lankan armed forces defeated the Tamil Tigers. All of this is critical to the narrative – the family are Tamils – but primarily as backdrop although occasional individual events burst through and change the direction of the story

Colombo, also important in the narrative, is the capital.

As lights come up there’s a young man sitting in his home studio in Lower Hutt making a pod cast, his topic: music from his parent’s home country of Sri Lanka. He’s found an old cassette tape belonging to his Mum and he wants to play it on air. The promotional material tells us that ‘seventeen tracks on an old mixtape reveal bittersweet memories of a family’s resilience behind every song.’

It doesn’t start well: his Mum Sangeetha (Ambika A.G.K.R as the elder) doesn’t want him to to play the tape and certainly not on air. She’s jolly grumpy. Flags like this tease us and we know things will happen as a result.

We learn that the action takes place in a small coastal village in Sri Lanka, Sangeetha’s (Gemma-Jayde Naidoo as the younger Mum) life is filled with music. ‘Songs are the glue that binds her family together. And she has a crush on Anton (Bala Murali Shingade), a guy at the general store who plays all the latest hits.

But, as the country slips into civil war, the family find themselves caught on the wrong side of history. Sangeetha recall’s that she had only ever heard the sounds of gunshots in movies. When she finally does, she knows that ‘this time is different.’

The story swings from 1950s’ Sri Lanka to modern-day Aotearoa, where Sangeetha is now living with her son Deepan (Shaan Kesha). The mixtape of the title is the only piece of Sangeetha’s past that remains, and it’s filled with memories, some joyous, some gut-wrenching. As Deepan plays the seventeen songs in sequence, the tale of what happened to his family unfolds through the music – from ‘Que Sera Sera’ and back again – until its remarkable finale.

It’s the cleverest and most profound playwrighting (Ahilan Karunaharan) I’ve experienced in decades, perhaps ever. It’s fun and funny, delicate and moving, human and intense, and from the first note of the first song, Karunaharan has my heart in his hand. He knows when to stroke and when to squeeze, when to tease and when to leave well alone. The result is a rich and satisfying journey that feels just like every other family might feel at any one time, but in a warzone that is neither of their making nor is it really their concern. They live their lives largely oblivious of it. Karunaharan is a master storyteller, and he knows the value of creating a world of quiet hope that, regardless of personal heartbreaks, is recorded with a charm that is painfully infectious.

So very, very real.

It’s both ‘a love letter to his homeland’ and a lament for the past, a bit like an episode of The Repair Shop that sneaks up on you and you find yourself blubbing like a sook about some elderly man and his tatty childhood teddy bear.  

Humanity in a beautiful box.

A Mixtape of Maladies is the third chapter in Karunaharan’s ambitious trilogy which began with the impressive TEA, was followed by The Mourning After, and concludes with A Mixtape for Maladies. They’re intensely personal stories but each is universal enough to transcend the intimate to appeal to everyone.

There was a playreading of A Mixtape for Maladies in 2023 and you can read Leigh Sykes’ review of this on Theatreview. There have been substantial changes since the 2023 outing and these would appear to have made a significant difference.

Karunaharan tells us that his play is about music, memory and family and who am I to disagree. He’s absolutely right. Too often playwrights will describe their plays in language that confuses and doesn’t come close to describing what the audience experiences from what they’ve written. Not so Karunaharan. Just like his script, his description is as authentic as the music in the show. He reminds us that ‘good music will always stand like a monument on the shore, weathered by the winds of time’ and he’s got that right too. An angry twenty seconds of ‘La Bamba’ is worth three hours of bleak old Samuel Beckett (with the greatest respect for Beckett who I also adore).

The entire production is flawless. Care is evident throughout, especially in the performances. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to question how, in a city the size of Tamaki Makaurau, casting a play with seven South Asian characters, would even be possible but it’s been done and superbly.

The five family members are wonderful. The three teens – brother Vishwanathan (Ravikanth Gurunathan), older sister Subbalaxmi (Tiahli Martyn) and younger sister Sangeetha (Gemma-Jayde Naidoo) are excellent, a totally credible trio of siblings.  Karunaharan has crafted older sister Subbalaxmi especially well and Martyn thoroughly does the business and with real class. Deepan (Shaan Kesha) is delightful as the 21st century podcasting lad and his intelligent relationship with his Mum Sangeetha (Ambika A.G.K.R) helps set in stone the time gap in the narrative between civil war Sri Lanka and modern-day Lower Hutt. Excellent work from both actors with some wonderfully evocative text underpinning their goings on. Dad Rajan (Ahilan Karunaharan) is an enigmatic figure who anchors the family with an embracing love. We enjoy his work very much. Sangeetha’s love interest Anton (Bala Murali Shingade) is innocent sex on legs just as he needs to be, and he rocks the white flares better than any man has since 1972. Shingade doubles as Vishwanathan’s friend Suthan, a delicately drawn character who, in one telling moment, takes our breath away.

Jane Yonge’s direction is precise, considered, accurate. It has to be because this is a deceptively complex play. There’s music to co-ordinate, choreography to embed, a multi-level, multi roomed space to manage, actors to move, and the challenge of making it all seem without edges, bumps, or creative indigestion. Yonge manages this with seeming ease and I am in awe. It’s a tour de force.

The production design is by Filament Eleven 11 (Rachel Marlow and Bradley Gledhill). On the surface it feels as though the playwright has made it as difficult as possible, but the designers have it all sorted by lunchtime. In short, it’s a great set, workable, attractive, clever. These are very talented people. Top of the class.

There are two musicians. Ben Fernandez and Seyorn Arunagirinathan. They pretend they’re an orchestra. They’re unobtrusive and they cover the gamut of western show tunes, traditional songs,  improvisation,it’s an expansive repertoire and, like everything else in this production, they’re sheer magic. Sheer magic.

This is a must see show and the star is the script.

This is a first outing for A Mixtape for Maladies, yet it feels as though it’s been around as long as The Mousetrap. It’s confident in itself and its parts are well oiled – and they’re confident too. Yonge has understood what is necessary to fulfil everything the Royal George Theatre tells us a theatre experience should achieve: theatre is not just about acting and plays; ‘it’s a powerful tool that brings people together, helps us understand our world and our emotions better, reflects the stories and issues of our society, sparks creativity, and teaches us things in a way that books and lectures sometimes can’t.’ A Mixtape for Maladies does all that and more. It moved me a way that wrung my withers but in a good way. It struck me deeply, but it left me intact. That’s truly smart work and everyone in the team contributed to my extraordinary delight.

Thank you, Auckland Theatre Company, Agaram Productions, and Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival.

But I save my biggest thank you for Ahilan Karunaharan, our master storyteller.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer