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. Continue Reading