by REENA KUMAR
THE themes explored in the stage production of The Reluctant Fundamentalist couldn’t be more pertinent to the events currently unfolding in the world, according to its director.
Former doctor Prasanna Puwanarajah, who decided to take a break from the medical world to “hit reset” and reconnect with his creative side, revealed to Eastern Eye why the play based on Mohsin Hamid’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel, is so relevant today.
Adapted for the National Youth Theatre by Stephanie Street, the play follows its world premiere last summer, which was the first ever stage production of the novel and Hollywood blockbuster film starring Riz Ahmed.
Next month, it returns to the stage with all cast members under the age of 25, and delves into the ironies of prejudice and representation in post 9/11 New York.
Puwanarajah said: “The play is exploring what happens to identity when a huge event happens to us all. Even since we staged the piece last year the world has changed so much. Alarmingly it has moved towards a world in which once again I feel brown when I go through a security checkpoint.
"A possibility in theatre is to increase an empathetic reach, to share worlds and experiences and this play does that in spades.”
The story follows Pakistani character Changez’s disenchantment while in America and his journey back to Lahore.
Puwanarajah said he was thrilled by the reception from audiences last year when it was lauded as an engaging, moving and humane play.
“It directly asks us: ‘who we are’, ‘who do we love?’ ‘Have we loved?’ “It’s an invitation to go to a personal and emotional place and to be in a room with others who are doing the same. I think it has a warm heart and I think it asks very big questions of the world and
how we see one another,” he added.
Before entering the arts, Puwanarajah studied medicine at New College, Oxford, working extensively in the NHS and for Médicins du Monde.
Speaking about the transition, he said: “I stepped away from being a doctor to clear my head, really. It’s an intense working environment and I don’t think any new doctor can avoid responding in some way to that pressure. I needed to reconnect with a different side of myself for a short while, to sort of hit reset.
“And that was the start of a gradual change in the work that I was doing and here I am now, not working in medicine anymore.”
Despite now being removed from that world, Puwanarajah says he still thinks about his colleagues and friends in the NHS a great deal, who are the best people he has ever worked with.
His debut play Nightwatchman, set on a cricket pitch, premiered at the National Theatre in 2011, where he has also acted.
Over the past few years, he has been busy directing a feature film, acting and writing, for which he says he is very grateful.
Puwajanarah directs the National Youth Theatre production of The Reluctant Fundamentalist at the Yard Theatre from August 8-12.
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