FIRST NIGHT | THEATRE

When the Crows Visit review — confronting misogyny and abuse in modern India

Kiln Theatre, NW6
Ayesha Dharker and Bally Gill in When the Crows Visit
Ayesha Dharker and Bally Gill in When the Crows Visit
MARK DOUET

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★★★☆☆
In Hindu tradition crows are believed to link the worlds of the living and the dead. They’re a constant ominous presence in this play by the Indian author Anupama Chandrasekhar, in which the past poisons the present and the spirit of an oppressive patriarch refuses to die.

Drawing on Ibsen’s Ghosts, with its toxic legacy of male tyranny, the drama confronts misogyny and abuse in modern India: at its centre is a horrific crime that recalls the 2012 gang-rape of Jyoti Singh. It’s an urgent subject, and Chandrasekhar doesn’t flinch from its complexities, exposing how systemic female subjugation is perpetuated partly by the women, terrorised and conditioned into compliance, who suffer under it. There is wit and vitality in the writing, yet there’s