Indian Ink is delighted to announce an 11 centre national tour of their new work Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream. With the company’s immediate international travel plans on hold, kiwis all over the Aotearoa can enjoy their latest production, in this, their most ambitious national tour ever playing in Wellington, Auckland, Tauranga, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Upper Hutt, Kapiti, Nelson, Ōamaru, Dunedin and Christchurch from 20 May – 2 September. This large-scale NZ tour precedes a confirmed North American tour in 2022.
Our lives are but melting ice cream and the transition between this world and the next is never easy, but it’s made profoundly more difficult when your guide is a vulture. A man trying desperately to avoid death is flung between limbo and his past where a rebellious young woman from Mumbai’s enigmatic Parsi community – a people whose faith is entwined with the vulture – holds the key that may deliver him to paradise.
Selling out its 2-week preview season in 2020, Paradise showcases the incredible talents of one of New Zealand’s most treasured actors – Jacob Rajan (MNZM) as he delivers a dazzling solo performance channeling seven characters while weaving the afterlife and a dash of Bollywood disco into the real-life mystery of India’s vanishing vultures. True to the beloved Indian Ink style, Paradise is rife with mischief, intelligence, exquisite puppetry, inspired sound design and comic originality.
Inspired by Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prize-winning Denial of Death, and the vibrant, life–filled chaos of India’s most cosmopolitan city, Indian Ink had the idea for this script after a trip to Mumbai in 2019. “Justin and I and got inspired by the city, its people and its secrets. In particular, the mystery of India’s vanishing vultures. The fastest mass extinction of all time and we’d never heard about it. It pricked our curiosity and the more we delved into it, the more wonderfully strange it got. We originally started writing about Mumbai, vultures, and immortality but discovered we were actually writing about impermanence. It’s a word that resonates with the strange times we’re living in”, says Indian Ink co-founder, Jacob Rajan.
Indian Ink has been lighting up the boards at home and abroad for over two decades and the company is one of our most successful theatrical exports. This new work has been created by the team behind many of their past hit shows – including Krishnan’s Dairy and Guru of Chai. It was in fact Krishnan’s Dairy that first put them on the map and this return to the one-man show format with Rajan at the helm will be incredibly satisfying for Indian Ink audiences – both new and old.
NOTE – copy for this article supplied by Elephant Publicity.
Paradise or the Impermanence of Ice Cream plays
WELLINGTON:
Te Auaha Theatre. 20 May – 5 June.
Tue & Wed, 6.30pm. Thur – Sat, 7.30pm. Sun, 4.00pm.
Book at www.iticket.co.nz
AUCKLAND:
Q Theatre. 9 – 26 June.
Tue & Wed, 6.30pm. Thur – Sat, 7.30pm. Sun, 4.00pm.
Book at www.qtheatre.co.nz
TAURANGA:
Baycourt Theatre. 2 – 3 July, 7pm & 4 July, 4.00pm.
Book at www.ticketek.co.nz
HAMILTON:
Meteor Theatre. 7 – 10 July, 7.00pm & 11 July, 4.00pm
Book at www.themeteor.co.nz
NEW PLYMOUTH:
TSB Showplace, 29 – 30 July, 7.30pm
Book at www.ticketek.co.nz
UPPER HUTT:
Expressions, 4 – 7 August, 7.00pm
Book at www.iticket.co.nz
KAPITI:
Te Raukura, 12 – 14 August, 7.00pm
Book at www.eventfinda.co.nz
NELSON:
Theatre Royal, 19 – 21 August, 7.00pm
Book at www.theatreroyalnelson.co.nz
OAMARU:
Opera House, 25 August, 7.00pm
Tickets on sale soon
DUNEDIN:
Regent Theatre, 27 August, 7.00pm
Book at www.regenttheatre.co.nz
CHRISTCHURCH:
Isaac Theatre Royal, 31 August – 1 September, 7.00 pm
Book at www.isaactheatreroyal.co.nz