Review: PARADISE OR THE IMPERMANENCE OF ICE CREAM – OZASIA FESTIVAL 2023 at Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Friday 20th October 2023.

Written and performed by Jacob Rajan, and directed and co-written by Justin Lewis, Indian Ink Theatre Company presents Paradise or The Impermanence of Ice Cream in this year’s OzAsia Festival.

Marley, sorry, I mean Kutisar, was dead: to begin with. He is, understandably, confused. He should be getting ready to go to his job at Harvey Norman in Adelaide. A vulture pecks at him. He sifts through the memories of his life as a young man in India. There he eked out a meagre living with his chai cart until he met Meera, a Parsi, who had taken over her grandfather’s kulfi ice cream shop.

Parsis leave the bodies of their dead to be consumed by the vultures as part of their religion. Meera, whom he falls for, takes him to the dakhmas, Towers of Silence, where her grandfather’s body has been left for the vultures. They discover it uneaten by the birds as so few remain in India. Kutisar, though, has more pressing problems, a moneylender who is pressuring him to repay the loan.

Jacob Rajan plays Kutisar and, with a change of posture, voice, and facial expressions, Meera, as well as numerous other characters including the moneylender, Meera’s aging aunty, Meera’s cousin, and a museum director, all in eighty minutes of fascinating theatre.

The story is ostensibly about the friendship between Kutisar and Meera, and how he becomes her partner in the ice cream shop, trying to help her make it profitable. Underlying this, though, is an ecological message.

It delves into the mysterious disappearance of India’s vultures. In the 1980s there were 40 million vultures. By 2000, the population had fallen by 99%. It was eventually determined that farmers were giving their livestock and anti-inflammatory drug, Diclofenac, for any and every ailment. The vultures ate the carcasses and the drug in the dead animals caused kidney failure in the vultures.

The vultures' digestive systems were able to kill the rabies virus. Without them, dogs moved in to eat the cattle carcasses, then bred into large populations, and rabies became a major problem. Disturb one thing in an environment, and it can affect many others. This message is given through the wonderful storytelling of Jacob Rajan.

Rajan tells the story with humour, and great skill, assisted occasionally by a vulture, a puppet created and operated superbly by Jon Coddington. This is the sort of thing that makes us love this Festival, so don’t miss it.