It’s a very strange feeling when you come across two new plays with almost identical themes – a zeitgeist moment where an idea floating in the ether gets picked up by two playwrights in close time proximity.
Epitomising opposing political viewpoints, the war between practical and aesthetic, emotional versus intellectual, and the disparity between social classes, the two characters each represent huge forces clashing within a coming-of-age story and a myth of the Taj’s history.
For its reopening, Younis has looked across the pond for a new play. He has chosen Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, which was first staged at the Atlantic Theatre, New York, in 2015, picking up an Obie Award along with other plaudits.
The all-female play looks at the complex and controversial landscape of commercial surrogacy in India through the microcosmic relationship between three parties – the surrogate, the doctor and the mother.
