Post-pandemic, my practice altered heavily. Why engage in certain plays, their impact on my personal and social understanding and chiefly the grammar and syntax of the dramatic structure - took centre stage (for me). Steiner’s, ‘Lemons….’ struck a chord deeply and fundamentally where the slipperiness and complexity of language gets a rigorous workout while it attempts to show how words can conceal and also how apparent banalities can carry value and meaning. Of course, this play is as much about resistance as it is about language. Recent events in the country make many of its ideas feel not just interesting in the abstract, but alarmingly urgent. 
 
The play deals with the Nation – citizen or Society- human binaries, which have become strangely haphazard and bitter in today’s times. The overgrowing compulsion of ‘out-woking’ and arriving as a reactionary have become evident (in us). The strained socio-political environment has thrown cohabiting individuals into a disorder of communication, language, love and freedom. The fracture between Aaditya’s activism and Feroza’s apolitical uncertainty feels deeper and more pointed, a parable about creeping fascism. 
 
The inquiry of love emerging, relations sustaining and people coexisting is a concern which fascinated me. It’s a comment on the loss of freedoms and the general rise of global authoritarianism in recent years. The heavily segmented, non-linear narrative structure of this two-hander offered an imposing directorial challenge which was fun to wrestle with. Hope the audience resonates as much as we did while making the play.