By Dominion Post

Not the least of the pleasures of this offering from the Indian Ink company is that the Wellington wind finally gets its star turn.

It’s a constant presence around the Indian-styled hotel on Oriental Bay where the action takes place. Buzzing like a chainsaw every time a door or window opens, it creates confusion and diversion.

Wind makes the second act opening a Buster Keaton-like sequence of hilarious physical daring and, in the end, becomes a vehicle of miraculous benevolence  intervening to provide the desired ending to this perfect evening in the theatre.

The wind is also the perfect metaphor for the way this piece works. Its shifting of the air around us to create unexpected collisions between people and objects is akin to the way this masterfully constructed play links to a multitude of styles into one happy contrivance.

The first “background” characters arrive in blank French style masks – the main characters wear the funny noses and Italian caricature masks familiar from Krishnan’s Dairy  and the Candlestickmaker, and we freely accept that one character may be the Grim Reaper –  how could the others not realise as we do that his initial G  coul not possible stand for George?.

We are carried along as if by a breeze from slapstick action and double take lines worthy of the Maerx Brothers to lightly  worn profundity about living nd dying,

Familiar themes such as arranged marriages are joined with subtle satirical thrusts at unexpected targets such as The Medical Council , globalisation and immigration policy.

Ini terms of its place in the Trilogy which began with Krishnan’s Dairy, it seems to me that this is  both the fulfilment and the finest achievement of Rajan’s and Lewis’s aims.

Some may place Krishnan higher but in part that us because it was such a surprise, presenting what, til then, was an area of New Zealand life  which had been artistically unexplored.