“A striking tribute to the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster”
Darkling is a striking tribute to the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, carefully told by a brilliant
and thoughtful team. Titas Halder’s play preserves the humanness of Bhopal, India before the
chemical leak and offers an important, meaningful perspective to this tragedy and ones much
like it.
The production is a solo show and Linnea Berthelsen fizzes with energy when she plays the
character ‘She’ in her younger years. Berthelsen expands, filling the space, as She explores the
streets of Bhopal. Running at an hour and a half with no interval, the play is no doubt
demanding for Berthelsen, but her energy never falters. There are moments where the childish
giddiness means we sometimes miss the poetics in Halder’s writing, but Berthelsen is strong at
finding other moments to slow and give weight to Halder’s words.
Matthew Xia’s direction and Anjali Mehra’s movement direction shines here. When Berthelsen
transforms into the characters She meets along the way, her physicality is deliberate and world-
building. Xia masterfully creates a production that can feel busy and bustling, but also can point
to She’s loneliness and isolation. The set is a particularly strong component of this. As a thrust
stage, there is a central, elevated island surrounded by a moat of dark dirt. The elevated stage
offers She water, fire, and paint from below its brick slats, which is a brilliantly symbolic example
of the play’s repeated celebration of human connection to the earth. The world is delicately
scored by Niraj Chag’s composition, which is subtle and moving. Beth Duke’s sound design
seamlessly creates worlds and characters out of a bare stage. Alongside Rajiv Patel’s lighting
design, the sound and lights work in tandem with Berthelsen to create a colourful, mobile
country out of the sturdy and concrete set.
There is a threat, however, in the form of the looming metal factory being built in Bhopal. At first
its presence is celebrated by She since the factory promises to provide more jobs and
prosperity. It quickly becomes clear that this coexistence of metal and man cannot last forever.
Berthelsen grows with the factory and as the play reaches the point of the chemical spillage,
She is 17. By now, Berthelsen has transformed. She moves slower, and rarely strays from the
central stage. Here, too, Halder’s writing stands as its own feat. The language is visceral and
staccato, a beautiful tribute to the experiences of the victims. In the final moments of the play, it
does not shy away from blame. This is not the fault of some metal giant, but a human, tucked
away behind his palmtrees and white office, safe across an ocean.
As Darkling begins, you are struck with an instant sense of foreboding. You know the play is
about the tragic chemical leak in Bhopal, India, yet here on stage a young girl talks you through
her family, her loves, her pet cat Sandesh. But this is the story. All victims of the leak, all
500,000 of them, had individual lives that were stripped away. Darkling perfectly captures the
scale of the disaster, whilst also insisting how deeply personal its effects were.
Darkling is running from the 5th September to 24th October 2026 at the Holloway Theatre, Bush
Theatre.