The Wrong Gods (Belvoir) ★★★½

Written by S. Shakthidharan. World Premiere. Belvoir St Theatre co-production with Melbourne Theatre Company. 3 – 31 May, 2025.

For all the small-scale human specificity in S. Shakthidharan’s new play about the lives of Indian farmers on the banks of a river, it manages to speak to the state of the world in expansive ways. Its insights are powerful, but you might need to pay close attention to catch them in the details.

Young Isha (Radhika Mudaliyar) dreams of leaving her family farm and starting a new life in the city. However, after receiving an education, her mother Nirmala (Nadie Kammallaweera) needs her help tending the land following her father’s abandonment. When the ambitious and encouraging Lakshmi (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash) arrives offering a university education and new, high-yield, genetically modified crops, it all seems too good to be true.

Seven years later, the world has changed. Nirmala has grown bitter and angry at the erosion of her traditional life by encroaching city dwellers and their demands to develop the land and build a new dam. Their construction has already disrupted the cycles that fed and nurtured the local tribes for generations. When Isha returns with horrific news, Nirmala calls upon the old gods for guidance and vengeance.

The smartest move The Wrong Gods makes is to bring back Counting & Cracking cast members Mudaliyar and Kammallaweera, whose on-stage chemistry reaps instant dividends. These two women are a joy to watch as they spar and dance around each other. They fall into a natural rhythm with Shakthidharan’s text, playing with its poetry. Suryaprakash (another Counting & Cracking alum) acts as a third gravitational force pulling them apart. Her Lakshmi is the alluring and reasonable pull of modernity and progress.

While it may lack the physical and temporal scope of Counting & Cracking, The Wrong Gods tackles far bigger themes. What is better: thousands of years of sustainable but limited lifestyles, or hundreds of years of wealth and comfort? Are the promises of progress merely short-term pleasures at the expense of our long-term health? Be sure to listen carefully as often, the key thoughts are buried in the middle of furious arguments or passionate tirades and can be easily missed.

Set design by Keerthi Subramanyam is a feast of simplicity and elegance, wrapping the stage in the earthen textures of wood, accented with key pieces made from recycled materials. The tree-ringed floor grounds us in history and nature over a time span that far exceeds our mere human lives.

But there is an unusual flatness to The Wrong Gods’ pace as it races through its 90-minute running time towards the conclusion. Isha’s change of heart feels abrupt and shallow, as the conflict doesn’t quite take root. One or two pivotal moments could benefit from added emphasis to let them truly land with the audience.

As we currently reap the rewards—and curses—of our modern, comfortable lives, it’s too easy to turn a blind eye to the destruction and long-term impacts of our choices. The Wrong Gods begs us to look at the hard truths and face up to our reality: no gods will be coming to save us.