A powerful and poignant theatrical epitaph has unfolded on a London stage, as Hampstead Theatre presents the first major revival of a Sir Tom Stoppard play since the legendary playwright's death. Indian Ink, his 1995 meditation on love, art, and literary legacy, has returned with a formidable central performance from Felicity Kendal, who starred in the original production three decades ago.
A Production Steeped in Poignancy
The revival's timing lends it a profound emotional weight. It arrives just a fortnight after West End theatres dimmed their lights in tribute to Stoppard. The play itself, which explores themes of posterity and how history remembers artists, feels startlingly resonant. Directed by Jonathan Kent, the production navigates the dual timelines of the narrative with clarity, moving between 1930s India and the mid-1980s.
The story centres on Flora Crewe, an Edwardian poet travelling in India, where she is painted by a young Indian artist, Nirad Das. Fifty years later, an earnest but crass American academic, Eldon Pike, pesters Flora's elderly sister, Eleanor Swan, for letters and papers, hoping to write a biography that the play suggests will be fundamentally flawed.
Kendal's Courageous Craft Takes Centre Stage
While the ensemble cast delivers strong performances—Gavi Singh Chera is powerful as the conflicted artist Das, and Donald Sage Mackay provides comic relief as the hapless academic Pike—the production's core draw is Felicity Kendal. Having played Flora in the original stage and radio productions, she now graduates to the role of the older sister, Eleanor Swan.
Kendal's performance is a masterclass in emotional depth, skilfully switching between steeliness and vulnerability. The climax, which requires her to stand at the grave of a writer, carries an almost unbearable poignancy so soon after the death of Stoppard, her former partner. Her courageous craft ensures the moment transcends fiction, becoming a genuine and moving tribute.
Stoppard's Heart and History
Indian Ink originated as a radio play titled In the Native State, a characteristically clever Stoppard pun referencing both the painting of nudes and the political 'native states' of British India. The production retains some of this radio-play structure with its cross-fades between eras.
The play deftly balances the politics of coloniser and colonised, a nuance informed by Stoppard's own background as a Czech émigré with an Indian childhood. It also serves as a potent reminder that, contrary to some criticism, Stoppard's work was always deeply emotional. Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is both amusing and moving as the forward-thinking, doomed Flora, embodying the play's deep notes of grief and love.
This revival, running at Hampstead Theatre until 31 January, is more than just a successful staging of a classic. It is a fitting and emotionally charged first epitaph for a dramatist whose loss is keenly felt across the theatre world, and nowhere more so than in this very venue.
