Review: Meet The Mukherjees
Venue: Octagon
Date Reviewed: 19th May, 2008
During one of his regular lunchtime meetings with Asian widow Chitra Mukherjee (Pooja Ghai) Afro-Caribbean Neville (Wyllie Longmore) learns that she is experiencing anxiety attacks because her 30 year old daughter, Anita (Rokhsaneh Ghawam-Shahidi) remains unmarried and unwilling to follow Hindu tradition and accept an arranged marriage.
This is partly to annoy her mother, and unaware that he is Neville’s son, Anita accepts a date with Aaron (Mark Springer) despite his bad boy reputation.
The tentative relationship between the lovers is threatened by parental objections to an inter-racial marriage and the discovery that Aaron has a teenage daughter from a past relationship.
Author Tanika Gupta uses Meet The Mukherjees to explore inter-racial tensions between the Asian and Jamaican communities . She is able to show how cultural background can cause prejudice to develop in even most decent eople in a way that provokes thought as well as laughter. Thus, when Chitra finds Aaron in her daughter’s bedroom she assumes, based on his skin colour, that he is a burglar rather than a lover.
However, the need to communicate to the audience some of the racial history of the communities gives rise to dialogue that sounds forced and out of place when inserted into arguments between families and lovers.
The Octagon audience though loved the occasionally bawdy humour and the comic situations involving Nicholas Khan in a dual role as the spirit of Chitra’s late husband and her predatory brother-in-law.
The cast are uniformly excellent combining experienced performers and those, such as newcomer Ayesha Gwilt, as teenager India.
Anni Domingo and Keeley Forsyth do their best with the least satisfying roles of scolding wife and best friend.
Ghai evokes the loss and sense of isolation that underlies Chitra’s concerns. Ghawam-Shahidi imbues Anita with a mixture of earthy sensuality and plain common sense. Mark Springer shows Aaron’s efforts to grow from lad about town to responsible boyfriend and father.
As the flirtatious Neville, Longmore shows how Araon might have developed his attitude and the man he might become. Most importantly the cast work in synchronicity, evoking so much warmth that convinces you entirely that they are friends and family.
-Dave Cunningham