India v England: time to dismantle some of the rules?
Illustration: Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
Daniel Nelson
Swearing, sex talk, insults, epithets, rivalry: a group of World Cup players, waiting for the rain to stop, banter and row, spill secrets and get on each others’ nerves.
These women are all Indian and English internationals, and their shared impatience and desire to resume play make for a lively first act of Testmatch at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.
Three women from each team share the tiny stage (an unlikely mingling of opponents at this level of competition) and their dialogue fizzes and flares across a range of dressing room topics — until one particularly dangerous subject rears its head, and the mood darkens.
After the interval, the mood has changed dramatically, and so has everything else, including the century. We are now in Calcutta in colonial India, perhaps the 18th century, where an Indian factotum records the conversation of a couple of foolish, foppish, avaricious East India Company gents working on the rules of cricket while famine grips the surrounding countryside.
Their cosy, self-congratulatory, exploitative world is suddenly threatened by an Indian woman with a mission and a political rebellion.
The significance of the play hangs on the comparisons between the two eras and circumstances (“who is playing by the rules, and who isn’t … And, more importantly, what rules do we need to dismantle and how quickly can we do it?”, as playwright Kate Attwell has explained). The similarities are accentuated by all characters in the second half being played by the same actors who performed in the first.
Famine and match-fixing are hardly comparable, but racism and sexism echo down the years and character traits are recognisable through time. I don’t think the play quite works as effectively as it sets out to do, though the powerfully conveyed Indian discontent gives the play heft.
Reading over my comments, they seem somewhat po-faced and miss the full flavour of the production — which is that Testmatch is witty and pacey, acted and directed with verve and skill, and is entertaining and fun.
And you don’t need to know anything about cricket to enjoy it.
Test Match, £15—£39, is at the Orange Tree Theatre, 1 Clarence Street, TWA 2SA until 18 May. Info: https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/testmatch/ Orange Tree