Meera Syal delivers sensational work in devastating dementia drama A Tupperware of Ashes at the National Theatre
“It feels like the world is changing”
Does anyone deal well with dramas about dementia? For reasons I’m not entirely cognisant of myself, they’re an absolute trigger for me to the extent that I seriously debated whether to see A Tupperware of Ashes or not as I’m not the biggest fan of sobbing uncontrollably in public spaces. But the promise of Meera Syal, Zubin Varla and more drew me to the National Theatre and whilst I did sob, it was worth it.
Tanika Gupta’s play is of course a tough watch, detailing the effect of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis on a British Indian family as it strikes down their matriarch. And what a woman Queenie is with a Michelin star and an MBE under her belt, her three adult children may not always get on with her strong-minded ways but as she begins to forget names and leave rice to burn on the stove, it’s clear that time has become cruelly limited for them all.
Gupta sensitively explores the family’s dysfunction through a culturally specific lens but the wounds of the intergenerational trauma at play here is universal. Meera Syal is phenomenal as Queenie, her gregariousness increasingly diminshed in a truly haunting manner. And Raj Bajaj, Marc Elliott and Natalie Dew are all excellent as her children, as capable of inflicting cruelty as having cruelty inflicted on them as the scars of old family conflicts are reopened by the fresh wounds of dealing with this impossible situation, particularly as it intersects with Covid restrictions for an extra sting of painful resonance.
Pooja Ghai does wonders to bring so much variation of tone though, to ensure there’s lightness and humour in here too, less concerned with the tricksiness of, say, The Father. Queenie is visited by the ghost of her beloved husband Ameet (a sonorous Zubin Varla) and through John Bulleid’s illusions, there’s a sense of real magic in the air in the exploration of the potentiality of her interior life. Rosa Maggiora’s gorgeous design and Matt Haskins’ lighting evoke the all-too-real deterioration of Queenie’s mind and Nitin Sawhney contributes a shimmering underscore. Plangent and powerful, another success for the Dorfman.
