by Amardeep Sohi
Freelance Arts Journalist

Two Pakistani girls living in a women’s refuge in a Northern town, shackled by the past and fighting for their freedom is the setting for the latest production by Tamasha, the theatre company who first introduced us to the much celebrated East is East.

Sweet Cider follows Nosheen and Tazeem’s journey as they struggle to make sense of their fractured and troubled lives, anchored only by their friendship.

Directed by Kristine Landon-Smith at the acclaimed Arcola theatre, the play lives up to Tamasha’s reputation for exhibiting fresh new talent with an up and coming playwright and cast.

Emteaz Hussain’s debut play Sweet Cider questions the nature of freedom, how it is attained and its relationship to the past. Nosheen (Stephanie Street) and Tazeem (Rajneet Sidhu) must forge a future for themselves whilst dealing with the fallout from leaving home. Hussain layers their journey with numerous issues from arranged marriages and parental responsibility to molestation and drug abuse.

With a running time of just under an hour, the play fails to delve into many of these issues making the play somewhat ambitious. The last five minutes in particular seem chaotic and hurried as the characters meet their individual fates. What it does leave you with is the realisation that perhaps all anyone can do is survive.

Hussain’s ability to inject comedy into these troubled and haunted lives determines her position as a playwright to watch. Stephanie Street in particular is the key to delivering the comic slant whilst Rajneet Sidhu offers a convincing performance as the naïve and hopeful Tazeem.

The partnership between the two is central to the plot, however it is their interaction with Amir (Sagar Radia), Aki (Hamza Jeetooa) which determines their fate. These two young men are equally troubled by the weight of responsibility to their parents and community and along with their friend Steve (Thomas Morrison), they become intertwined in the lives of Nosheen and Tazeem, altering their lives forever.

The characters all meet on Sue Mayes’ park like set which is both a communal yet isolated domain. The park acts as an adequate symbol for the alienation felt by these youths who are linked by their collective and suffocating heritage.

Although the plot centres around the lives of these troubled youths, it is Sudha Bhuchar who commands the set with her portrayal of the endearing Rabia; the middle-aged woman exiled to a life of solitude after being thrown out by her daughter-in-law.

Hovering in the background, she observes the comings and goings of the park with an authority and warmth which denotes that of a mother figure.

As she draws in the youths and audience with her stoicism and wisdom, she acts as a reminder that a fractured and difficult life does not only belong to the younger generation.

Writing about it on the Tamasha website, Emteaz Hussain says:

The play isn’t just about the girls, even though that was my starting point. I wanted to explore the context, the community they run from. The play is set in a park, a place where all the characters gather, and it is here we see this community at crisis point. What happens when we’ve allowed fear to take hold? What level of hurt do we inflict on each other? And ultimately, how is it that we survive?

I was 16 when I ended up in an Asian women’s refuge. On my second night there, the girls took me to a pub – I had never been in a pub in my life! I had no idea what to drink and how to ask for it. The girls told me to ask for sweet cider: “it’s like apple juice,” they said. So I asked for a glass of sweet cider, and the bar staff replied, “would you like half or a pint?” I felt so stupid! “Say half,” the girls said.

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Cast: Shammi Aulakh, Sudha Bhuchar, Taru Devani, Hamza Jeetooa, Tom Morrison, Aria Prasad, Sagar Radia, Rehan Sheikh, Rajneet Sidhu and Stephanie Street

Sweet Cider ran at the Arcola theatre until 15th November. It may return to Theatres in the near future.