“Rich evocative and unflinching.” – Time Out
“Deep engagement with big ideas that traverse the personal and political” – The Age
“An absorbing drama” – The Guardian
“Deeply affecting” – Suzy Goes See
“Nuanced, thought provoking and proudly South Asian” – State of the Art

By S. Shakthidharan
Directed by Hannah Goodwin and S. Shakthidharan

In a valley in India, paintings on a cave wall bear testimony to the presence of people – and their gods – for fifty thousand years. Close by, Nirmala farms the soil as her ancestors did, but her daughter Isha wants something more – a city education, and the opportunity it promises. And there are outsiders in the valley now, bringing new crops, new technologies, new visions of the future. There are new gods loose in the valley. But they are asking Nirmala and her people to pay a heavy price.

A gripping new play from S. Shakthidharan (Counting and Cracking, The Jungle and the Sea) co-directed by Hannah Goodwin (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Never Closer), The Wrong Gods melds mother-and-daughter struggle with the economics of progress, asking, what are we worshipping? And what price will we pay?

Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea were big plays. Here, with just four actors and ninety minutes, Shakthi’s writing is even bigger than ever, modelling in this small patch of India the impact of capitalism on the planet as a whole. What a writer. – Eamon Flack

WORLD PREMIERE SEASON

3 MAY – 1 JUN 2025
Belvoir St Theatre

6 JUNE – 12 JULY
Melbourne Theatre Company

The Wrong Gods is inspired in part by an older project Shakthi was involved in, Zameen.

In 2011 a group of artists from Australia and India (from dance company Attakkalari) journeyed deep into India’s Narmada Valley. They met and lived with communities that are gradually being submerged due to large scale dam development in their region. To date over 30 million people have been internally displaced, and the resulting Indigenous activist movement – the Narmada Bachao Andolan – has become one of the most successful and sophisticated in contemporary history.

As a result of that trip, the artists created contemporary dance work Zameen and a companion short documentary of the same name. The works premiered in 2013 at Floating Land Festival in Queensland and toured to Parramasala Festival later that year. An adapted installation of the work later screened at Attakkalari’s biennale. 

Zameen is a partnership between Jehan Kanga, Leah Barclay and S. Shakthidharan, and in its original form partnered with dancers from Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts and CuriousWorks.

Dancers: Meghna Nambiar, Sylvester Mardi, Ronita Mookerji, Attakkalari Dancers
Visual Artist: S. Shakthidharan
Sound Artist: Leah Barclay
Producer: Jehan Kanga
Camera & Sound Assistant: Jehan Kanga

Images below by S. Shakthidharan and the children of Narmada Valley.