The Maharajah's Daughters - A review

By Clive Bradley
Based on an idea by Mehtab Theatre

Reviewed by Ajay Pamneja (18th October 2002)

This play about the ordinary lives of two descendants of an extraordinary family is both a sad tragedy and a bold telling of a piece of history which many haven't dared before.

The performances by Parminder Sekhon and Sakuntala Ramanee are par excellence and the sets and the atmosphere creation have succeeded in bringing to the audience the story of psychological struggle the two women must have faced during their life time.

A little lesson in history - Maharaja Duleep Singh was the son of deposed Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the most well known King of Punjab of undivided India. Maharaja Duleep Singh was brought into this country by the representatives of Queen Victoria as he was only 10 years old at the time of his father's death. The British took over the reigns of the great kingdom of Punjab and young Duleep Singh was baptised and brought up as a Catholic in the UK. A little older Duleep Singh got married to lady of Indian origin, they had two daughters, and a litle later, the rebel Duleep Singh, with a strong penchant to return to his old lost Kingdom, left his family to live in France with and English woman. This story is of the two daughters who he left behind in the UK.

The two daughters grew up under the watchful eye of the Queen's staff. The older one, more pragmatic, resigned to her fate blamed her father for the state they were in, whereas the younger one idolised her father and kept alive her dream to return to India one day as a 'Maharani'. The play begins in 1915, around the time of the death of Maharaja Duleep Singh, when the younger daughter is a around 18 years old. Teh paths followed by the two sisters are poles apart reflecting their beliefs of what destiny holds for them, The younger one stays in their grand mansion in London and dreams of following in her father's footsteps to form alliance with the representatives of the Muslim League to achieve a separate state of Punjab just like the Muslim demands for a separate Muslim State from India, whereas the older daughter has gone to live in Germany with her female lover, who was also once their governess. Upon threats of eviction from the grand house they are so used to now, by the British authories, and fear of ending up on the streets with nobody to support them, teh younger daughter withdraws from her very unpopular (amongst the British) support for the underground groups in London. The socialist younger daughter, played by Parminder Sekhon, is made to realise on may occasions that her activities in the earlier part of her life for the support for the Suffragette Movement with Sylivia Pankhurst were in total contrast to her desire to return to India as a 'Maharani' and other similar contradictions in her beliefs. the older daughter returns to England after the Nazis gain power in Germany. The two sisters are reunited once again and theye have grown older and wiser and realise that their fate is now controlled by the British authorities who provide for all their needs. The whole story is told through the reading of letters and other correspondence between the sisters (read by the sisters) and the stage design and lighting deserve a special mention for successfully creating the atmosphere.

The play has brought to the public a generally forgotten chapter in the history of Sikh Kings. It is an honest assessment of the lives of the two daughters who grew up in a distant land, so distant from their birth place and in such a confined and guarded atmosphere that, it is hard to imagine how they stayed sane and adapted to their roles as two brown British women, when there wouldn't have been many like them around.

A big applause for all the production team and performers for presenting such a long period in history with such refined presentation with all the elements of a successful theatre experience - tragedy, suspense, thrill, comedy and emotions.

 

The performance at The Oval House is on till the 19th 0ct 2002.