THEATRE Counting and Cracking ★★★★★ Rising Festival, Union Theatre, until June 23 When Counting and Cracking opens, it is 2004 and Siddhartha (Shiv Palekar) is reluctantly taking part in a Sri Lankan funeral ritual in western Sydney. The 21-year-old would rather be hanging out with his friends, who call him Sid, or listening to the music signalled by the indie band T-shirts he dons – but his mother, Radha (Nadie Kammallaweera), insists. Shiv Palekar as Siddhartha in the opening scene of Counting and Cracking.
Credit: Pia Johnson A phone call from Colombo informs the mother and son of shocking family news, and is the point from which this story departs, blooming across decades and borders. Finally showing in Melbourne after debuting in 2019 – and heading, next, to New York – S. Shakthidharan’s award-winning play is an impressive feat of theatre.
It features 19 performers from six countries speaking five languages, and charts the impacts of the Sri Lankan civil war on one family across generations. Three musicians sit in the corner of the stage, with their live Carnatic soundtrack adding atmosphere, depth and sometimes even humour. The heady smell of incense wafts around the room.
Water from a slip’n’slide splashes towards a laughing audience. Actors are dotted around the theatre’s wings, spotlighted as they speak or translate; Dale Ferguson’s cavernous set captures the enormity and scope of the story, colourful and vibrant at one moment, desolate at t.
