The Pickle King: What is worth preserving
Disability Culture Report by New Zealand reporter, Robyn Hunt (robyn@iecho.co.nz)
The Empire Hotel has seen better days. Ammanchy and her niece Sasha have turned it into a honeymoon retreat for those on a tight budget.
Ammanchy despairs that Sasha will ever marry. Sasha is nearly blind, but this is not the real problem. Se believes she is cursed, that everything she loves dies. Her Aunt's efforts to find her a suitor are forcefully rejected.
Jojo is the night porter who cannot get work in his real career as a cardiothoracic surgeon.
One night Death checks in to the Empire Hotel.
The play is a many-layered trawl across the experience of immigrant families of Indian descent in New Zealand, the foibles and tragedies of humanity generally, the history of the World, the ever-present Death, pickle making and the preservation of food.
It turns potentially tragic events and stories into warm humour that never becomes saccharine, and witty observations on the human condition.
Some fairly pungent social comment is delivered without beating the audience about the ears. Implicit in the action is concern about development in countries like India where there is scant regard for the safety and well-being of the local inhabitants.
Sasha is a spirited young woman, who, despite her belief that she is cursed, is not a victim.
While her lack of physical vision is accompanied by shrewd perception she is not portrayed as anything other than a real woman. Occasionally though, the realism of her portrayal of someone with little sight (played by a non-disabled actress) slips a bit in its authenticity.
Playwright Jacob Rajan is a New Zealander of Indian descent. In the programme notes he recounts a family legend.
About 200 years ago, the story goes, there was a maharajah whose daughter lost her sight when she was very ill.
The Royal physicians could not help, so the maharajah sent word of his daughter's illness throughout the kingdom in the hope a cure could be found.
After many months and many unsuccessful attempts by doctors and holy men, and just when it seemed nothing could be done, a doctor named Kaliyilal arrived from a remote village. He effected a cure by applying a poultice to the princess's eyes, leaving them bandaged overnight.
He was richly rewarded for his effort including tax exemptions for his descendants as long as they remained doctors to ensure his skills were passed on.
Rajan claims descent from that doctor, and says that while the tax exemption no longer applies there have always been doctors in his family except for him. That story infuses the play.
Fortunately the modern audience is not subjected to any miracle cures for Sasha's near-blindness, and one is not sought. But 'healing' comes in many forms, and it is as present as death in The Pickle King.
The Play is the last of a loose trilogy by Auckland-based Indian Ink Theatre Company, and follows the success of Krishnan's Dairy and The Candlestickmaker.
Both broke box office records across the country and continued to sell out in second and third seasons.
Krishnan's Dairy also won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999.
The Pickle King is a worthy final play in the trilogy, and has the potential to be as successful as the two earlier productions. It is a very satisfying performance if you like to laugh at the same time as you are stimulated to think. If it comes to a theatre near you it is worth seeing.
The right to die as entertainment
A return to the New Zealand hospital soap Shortland street. A doctor who is quadriplegic wants to die. One doctor opposes, one supports. We get the impression that the opposing doctor's reason is not based on ethical grounds, but rather if it is allowed it will be bad for the hospital. He is after all the CEO.
The supporting doctor also does not explore the issues before making his decision. The assumption seems to be that it is so obvious that her situation is untenable, that there need be no debate.
A nurse who has strong religious views opposes the patient's wish, but nowhere do we hear a disability perspective or any acknowledgement of the value of disabled lives.
In a production that claims to deal with current social issues viewers should at least be able to expect the different views would be explored fully whatever the eventual outcome.
Then there was the Australian item in the current affairs program which tells the story of a 'courageous' woman's decision to end her own life before motor neuron disease shuts her body down any more.
The male interviewer seemed to be overawed by the situation and her apparent heroism, and, although her sisters expressed their ambivalence abut her action, there was never an opposing point of view expressed.
I thought of the person I know with the same condition who can no longer speak or do much in the way of self-care. (The woman profiled could still speak perfectly and use her hands.) I wonder what that program would have said to him if he had been watching. Would it tell him that everyone agrees that life beyond a certain point of functioning is no longer worth living?
While I would be the last to advocate the deprivation of autonomy for any individual, the negative construction of a life with impairment the popular media still promote is downright depressing. It seems that a 'fate worse than death' may still be the view of the average person. An opposite, realistic, non-exploitative view would be so refreshing for a change.
Sadly, when she did take the pills they didn't work and she remains in a coma, in the very situation she had so dreaded.
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