Kattala Neralu starring Balaji Manohar and Siri Ravikumar mirrors silences amongst families

First premiered at Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival last year, Bangalore Theatre Collective’s Kattala Neralu returns to the city to stage an intimate and psychologically charged story of two people meeting after many years. This Kannada play is translated from acclaimed Scottish playwright David Harrower’s Blackbird and is directed by Venkatesh Prasad.

“When adapting Blackbird into Kattala Neralu, the biggest responsibility was sensitivity. I did not want to localise it superficially by just changing names or locations. Instead, I asked: how does silence function in our society? How do we speak about desire, shame, power and memory in Kannada cultural contexts? We made it relevant by allowing the characters to feel like people we may know, without losing the uncomfortable moral questions the original text asks,” Venkatesh begins.

Fifteen years have passed since they last met! On the surface, it appears simple — a room, a conversation — but beneath lies a complex web of memory, regret, longing and unresolved tensions. Now, in a single room, what appears is far more than memory — carried in silence, the ache of betrayal, the weight of anger and abandonment.

“The core themes remain intact (memory, consent, guilt, power, trauma and perspective). These themes unfold through pauses, subtext and emotional shifts rather than loud confrontations. The title itself means ‘shadow of darkness,’ which reflects how the past lingers like a shadow — sometimes distorted, sometimes unclear, but always present,” he clarifies.

Like Blackbird, the play does not give easy answers. It asks the audience to sit with discomfort. But in this version, the emotional vocabulary is shaped by our cultural codes such as how we suppress, justify or reinterpret the past.

“The play revolves around a meeting between two individuals who share a complicated past. At first, it feels like a reunion. Gradually, we realise that both characters carry very different versions of what happened between them. As the conversation deepens, memories are revisited, perspectives are challenged and truths begin to shift. The music is minimal and atmospheric, we use subtle sound textures — almost like a distant hum — to create emotional tension,” the director shares.

In Kattala Neralu, every glance trembles with the past and every word threatens to reopen wounds that time have never healed. This production is the director’s attempt to hold up a mirror: to the hidden negotiations of power between adults and children, to the dangerous silences amongst families, to the lifelong scars left by abuse. It is also a call to parents, teachers and all of us who care for children: to pay attention, to listen, to recognise the signs of grooming and to believe survivors when they speak up.

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