A FINE BALANCE - REVIEW OF 2026 CROW’S THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

A Fine Balance is a dramatic, disturbing, depressing and enlightening portrayal of a part of life in India in the latter part of the twentieth century. It is based on Rohinton Mistrys’ 1995 novel that has been adapted for the stage by Anosh Irani and is now playing at Crow’s Nest Theatre in Toronto.

The play has four central characters. They are Ishvar (Anand Rajaram), his nephew Omprakash (Ben Yoganathan), Dina (Zorana Sadiq), a businesswoman (who hires the latter two as tailors) and Maneck (Siddharth Sharma), ( a “relative of Dina).

Ishvar and Omprakash are desperately poor tailors travelling by train to the big city to find work and make some money. They belong to the “untouchables” the lowest caste of Indian society which makes them barely human in the eyes of their “superiors’. Ishvar has been pummeled so much in his life that he is apologetic and obsequious, willing to strive to survive on the scraps that he can find in his social stature. Unlike his uncle, the seventeen-year-old Omprakash is cocky and resentful and wants to return to his village rather than seek opportunities in the ugly city.

Dina is the offspring of the middle class who has seen better days, but now as a widow with failing eyesight she runs a dress-making business and hires Ishvar and Omprakash as sewers in her apartment where running a business is illegal. Maneck is the son of a friend of hers and she treats him like family. He is studying to become a heating and refrigeration worker and against all social norms befriend Omprakash.

Scene from  A Fine Balance at Crow's Theatre. Photo: Dahlia Katz/

Ishvar and Omprakash meet Maneck accidentally in the train that is delayed because someone has been killed on the tracks, ( there is another such fatality near the end of the play) and coincidentally all are going to Dina’s house. The image of life in India will be illustrated by numerous incidents in the lives of these people.    

Ibrahim (Husein Madhavji), the landlord’s rent collector comes and threatens to evict Dina because she is running a business out of her apartment.  Ishvar and Omprakash are offered a free radio if they agree to a vasectomy. It is a government measure to reduce  the population explosion. Eventually they are both castrated because the doctor refuses to perform involuntary vasectomies but he can castrate them on the spurious excuse that they have testicular cancer.

Nusswan (Husein Madhavji) is Dina's businesslike brother and Shankar (Madhavji again) is the mysterious beggar who has no hands and no legs but hides some surprises for the other characters.

There are some rays of decency in the wretched lives of the main characters but not enough to redeem the bleakness of their existence or our view of that society. One may look for redemption in the end of the play but I think it is probably illusory or perhaps we may look at it as better than nothing.

As I was watching the depressing depiction of life in India, Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths and Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth kept popping into my head and a line from a documentary about Britain to the effect that the sun never set over the British Empire but for most people of London, the sun never rose.

The acting was superb but unfortunately parts of  dialogues could not be heard and we missed some of the humour.

The main set by Michael Gianfranceso consisted of Dina’s apartment but with minor changes it became a train, a train stop, a flophouse etc., efficient and well done.

Chris Abraham directs a story taken from a 700-page novel with clarity except for the few lines that were lost in the delivery.
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A Fine Balance, an adaptation for the stage of Rohinton Mistry’s novel  by Anosh Irani will run until October 25, 2026, at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.  http://crowstheatre.com/

James Karas is the Culture editor of The Greek Press, Toronto