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.