Two current Indianizations of plays originally in English show family members taking the lives of their closest relatives. Kalyani Natyacharcha Kendra’s Nim Amrita adapts into Bengali Somerset Maugham’s The Sacred Flame, which, going further than Ibsen’s Ghosts, presents the euthanasia of a terminally ill man. Little Thespian’s Chehre adapts into Urdu Tony Devaney Morinelli’s The Sins of the Mother, which concludes with the suffocation of an alcoholic woman. Both, therefore, ask us to reflect on the extenuating circumstances behind what normally qualifies as murder.
In fact, Maugham’s whodunit from 1928 is well known as one of the earliest dramas to deal with mercy killing empathetically; obviously I should not divulge further details of the storyline. Bhaskar Lahiri translates it closely, but probably for theatrical reasons he converts the brothers into twins. This gives Aniruddha Biswas a golden opportunity to shine in a differentiated double role, which he does with alacrity. Director Kishore Sengupta suspensefully keeps us guessing whether the man actually signalled to his mother before the end—which Maugham never hinted at. The several romantic subplots form an engaging foil to the main theme.
The Sins of the Mother (1996) by contemporary American playwright Morinelli is an all-women one-act that presents three generations where the domineering grandmother’s oppression percolates matrilineally, faintly reminiscent of Garcia Lorca’s House of Bernarda Alba. The comparatively short duration prevents it from delving deeper into each individual’s psychology, but Chehre underscores its points about the effects of addiction and obsessive control. Azhar Alam had transplanted it into a Muslim context, and Uma Jhunjhunwala directs it realistically, all five actresses (including herself as the mother in the middle) portraying their characters credibly.
(7 August 2026)