River on Fire – Photograph 1

Series nameProduction: River on Fire
Description

This is a photograph of a scene from Ruksana Ahmad’s play, ‘River on Fire’, Kali Theatre Company’s fourth major production. The actors from left to right are: Ravi Aujla as Waheed, Shelly King as Seema Siddiqui, Parminder K. Nagra as Kiran Siddiqui and Parminder Sekhon (top centre) as Zara Mehta.

Date of Creation / Publication2001
CreatorBurnett, Sheila
Associated Person/ OrganisationWolf, Rita; Aujla, Ravi
Location
Collection and Reference NumberKali Theatre Company (GB 2661 KT)
Catalogue NumberKT/PRO/RO/4
Copyright
Access to originalsThe originals are located at Kali Theatre Company.
Series notesIn Spring 2001comma Kali Theatre Company presented Rukhsana Ahmad’s play, ‘River on Fire’, which explores the subjects of religious beliefs and intolerance through the story of Kiran, a young Asian woman who arrives in Bombay from London to act in a Bollywood version of the play Antigone. After her mother, who is an atheist, dies unexpectedly, Kiran finds herself in a battle over death rites with her family as they decide whether to cremate or bury the body. The play is set against a backdrop of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims which enveloped the streets of Mumbai in the early 1990s during the Babri Masjid riots.

The cast of River on Fire include: Shiv Grewal as Bobby Siddiqui, Shelley King as Seema Siddiqui, Parminder Sekhon as Zara Mehta, Lyndam Gregory as Raj Dada, Parminder K. Nagra as Kiran Siddiqui, Ravi Aujla as Waheed, and Lyndam Gregory in the roles of Ashok, Raj Dada and Akbar.

The production team for River on Fire includes: Director, Helena Uren, Designer, Sophia Lovell Smith, Lighting Designer, Flick Ansell, Kathak Dance Choreographer, Gauri Sharma Tripathi and Sound Designer, Ansuman Biswas. The production toured in Spring 2001 to the following venues: the Lyric Studio in Hammersmith, London, the Leicester Haymarket, The Hawth in Crawley and The Gantry in Southampton.
Collection notesThe Kali Theatre Company collection consists of digitised material which fall into two categories: items which relate to Kali Theatre’s productions, such as programmes, flyers and photographs and material which provides information about workshops and outreach programmes.