Ben Yoganathan, Zorana Sadiq, and Anand Rajaram in A Fine Balance | Photo by Dahlia Katz
I read Rohinton Mistry’s novel, set during India’s 1975 Emergency, around the time it came out, just over thirty years ago. I’ve retained little beyond a few snapshots—oh, but those were potent and left their mark! At just over seven hundred pages (or slightly under, depending on the edition) to contend with, playwright Anosh Irani’s theatrical adaptation requires some clever narrative dancing to wedge the sweeping tale into two and a half hours.
A Fine Balance, presented by Crow’s Theatre, holds together very well, but I can’t help imagine the nuances possible if it had been broken into two parts, as Hannah Moscovitch and Alisa Palmer did with Ann-Marie MacDonald’s similarly beloved classic, Fall on Your Knees, a source material that was even slightly shorter than this one. The trick here has been pulled off by maintaining solid momentum to drive us through the plot, with a small handful of episodes given inordinate stage time to build the world and give the impression of really sitting in moments.
There’s an early scene, for instance, in which two of our characters, fresh off the train, are discomfited by the realities of being destitute in the bustling urban sprawl of Bombay, where they must contend with the fetid and humiliating reality of relieving themselves in public, on an exposed train track turned make-shift lavatory. The scene could be so much shorter and, potentially, cut entirely, but we spend a good ten minutes, it seems, on this gross and comical situation because it creates a vivid atmosphere we are forced, like the characters, to endure.
Those two men are Ishvar (Anand Rajaram), a sad clown of a man desperately ingratiating himself to everyone except his cocky nephew, Omprakash (Ben Yoganathan), whose boastful attitude is a defence against the shame of their “untouchable” status in the caste system and an assertion of his dignity. Together, they are a frequently goofy spectacle, but their situation is undeniably wretched and their fate utterly harrowing and grotesque, foreshadowed by the maimed beggars they befriend. As a duo, Rajaram and Yoganathan are distinct foils for each other and their dynamic is a heightened portrait of ambitious yet thwarted masculinity
They are thrust into the zone of the more well-to-do, yet very much struggling, intermediary entrepreneur Dina (Zorana Sadiq), who has hired them as tailors in her illegal garment factory which she runs out of her bedroom. Sadiq is steady and assured, though she lets us feel the precipice at Dina’s back—her constant awareness that she’s only a few bad moves from the edge of her independence, and a mortifying fall back into the care of her condescending brother. The state of emergency has suspended most civil liberties and this household is just one of thousands under oppressive scrutiny. Ishvar and Om must be kept hidden from prying, opportunistic eyes, and the shared space, her home, is fraught with social tensions and psychological torment.
As they wrangle and cajole, struggling to maintain some semblance of a decent life, they also discover a shared humanity and, under the strain of vile conditions, forge a prickly bond.
Thrown into this potent mix is Dina’s boarder, a pensive college student named Maneck (Siddharth Sharma), who is bullied at college and earnestly, though ineffectually, criticizes the caste system that alienates he and Dina from Ishvar and Om. Of a similar age, he is a direct contrast to Om’s hostility, and they become strange bedfellows.
Sharma gives one of the most understated performances here, and my eyes were often drawn to him, even when he’s quietly attentive in the background of larger moments. It took a while for me to fully appreciate a distinctive and distracting (to me, at least) tick—the constant tugging at the hem of his shirt, an awkward gesture that is so consistently discomfiting that it proves ultimately revealing. Maneck’s striking good looks and opportunity for success is subverted by a nagging conscience and deep insecurity. That nervous tugging, and his diminutive body language in general, have a significant cumulative effect.
Sugith Varughese and Husein Madhavji play a number of colourful supporting characters—a intrusive rent collector, a villainous landlord, that awful brother, and a series of hard-done-by Bombay locals. There is some persuasive characterization here, but because we don’t have a lot of time with these players and they each have unsubtly evocative personae, it can sometimes feel a bit hokey, theatrically self-aware in a way that doesn’t always work in this context.
Anand Rajaram, Ben Yoganatjan, and Sugith Varughese in A Fine Balance | Photo by Dahlia Katz
Director Chris Abraham production is teeming with hot and hectic atmosphere. The main feature of Michael Gianfrancesco’s set is a realistic depiction of Dina’s flat. On the fringes of this home, things get more stylized with oppressive steel girders and corrugated metal to suggest the industrial infrastructure and rusted encroachment of shanty environments. Imogen Wilson has light spilling naturally through windows and doors, while Thomas Ryder Payne’s sound design provides the cacophony of street traffic. The aesthetics emphatically suggest that titular precarious balance, the central theme of the story, by making Dina’s home feel like an imperfect sanctuary amidst an abject and tyrannical milieu.
With intentionally cumbersome squeaks and shudders, suspended scenic elements are dragged across the downstage area to represent exterior doors and walls. Scene transitions have a cinematic vibe as light, movement and sound conspire to remind us of the chaotic yet purposeful momentum of a city under duress—a simultaneously exhilarating and threatening backdrop for our characters.
Throughout this grim tale, our intrepid quartet, each battling their own personal demons, must ride the relentless wave of circumstance which sends them careering into situations both uplifting and devastating. The fine balance is epitomized in the final sequence, a rare moment of sustained quiet and meditation, where we witness the fragile peace and connection humans can find within appalling conditions. Coming on the heels of a rather horrific screech of a sequence, Abraham allows Sadiq, Rajaram and Yoganathan the space to really live in the nuances of their shared fate and allow the audience a moment of much needed reflection.
While splitting this into two parts would have opened up opportunities for us to experience more moments like this, to let the story breath a bit, everyone here has achieved a solidly compelling gestalt. Bleak is, I feel, too flat a word for where A Fine Balance leaves us. The aspirational fire has been extinguished, and not everyone survives their reckoning with the world, yet the small gestures of mutual affection that remain are a stirring flicker in the gloom.
A Fine Balance
August 25 to October 18, 2026
Crow’s Theatre, Guloien Theatre
(345 Carlaw Avenue)
2 hours, 45 minutes (including intermission)
Sugith Varughese (facing back) Anand Rajaram, Siddharth Sharma, and Ben Yoganathan in A Fine Balance | Photo by Dahlia Katz