Review: Krishnan’s Dairy

One of New Zeal­and’s most-loved plays has returned for a short sea­son at the Han­nah Play­house. Hav­ing not seen it before (des­pite it com­ing around every couple of years for almost the last twenty!) we took the chance to finally go see it.

Gobi Krish­nan (“a small man”, as the McGlashan-esque song/narrator would have him) has come to New Zea­l­and for a bet­ter life. With him are his wife Zina (“my war­ri­or prin­cess!” says Gobi), and their young son.

Gobi has bought a corner shop, and has an expans­ive view of his new coun­try; Zina would rather go home. Or would she? We see their rela­tion­ship unfold in par­al­lel with the telling of anoth­er story of a legendary love, each illus­trat­ing the oth­er.

Jac­ob Rajan plays all parts via the use of masks, mime, sound effects and the occa­sion­al use of slap­stick, build­ing a story that is much deep­er than you’d ini­tially think.

Rajan’s per­form­ance is extremely pol­ished; maybe almost too pol­ished and I found I had trouble enga­ging with him ini­tially. Everything seemed to just slot into place without room for those little impro­visa­tions that some­times serve to bring the audi­ence inside and make them think the show is just for them and them alone. Giv­en how often the show has been per­formed over the years maybe this should­n’t be a sur­prise.

But regard­less, the show is clev­er and affect­ing and I’m glad I went. If you’ve nev­er seen Krish­nan’s Dairy, now’s the time to go.

Tick­ets avail­able via Tick­etek and the sea­son runs from July 29th to August 2nd.