There is a moment in The Jungle and the Sea when a mother blindfolds herself. She will not look at the world, she decides, until her family is together again. It is an act so simple and so devastating that it lands in the chest like something physical.
The Jungle and the Sea, written and directed by S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack, is set during and in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war, the long and brutal conflict between the Sinhalese-majority government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But the war itself is not really the subject. At its heart is one Tamil family: three sisters, a brother, a mother and a father. It is about what happens when history tears through their ordinary lives.
The play begins almost innocently. The family fills the stage with the playfulness and banter of everyday life. There is teasing, laughter and the easy familiarity of people who belong together.
Then news of violence arrives, and that ordinary family life begins to unravel.
The family scatters. The father, Siva, loses his sight after being injured in a bombing. He and his daughter Lakshmi eventually make their way to Australia as refugees. Here, another life begins. Lakshmi studies law and moves forward, at least outwardly, while father and daughter continue to live with what and whom they have left behind.
In Sri Lanka, the rest of the family keeps moving, searching for safety as the war follows them. Their son Ahilan is recruited by the Tigers, separating the family further. Gowrie, the mother, responds with an extraordinary act. She blindfolds herself and vows not to see again until her family is reunited.
It is one of the production’s most powerful images, the kind of moment this play delivers more than once, quietly and all the more affecting for it.
Yet amid the violence, love finds a place. Abi marries in a ceremony led by a Christian priest who brings together different faith traditions. It is a moving expression of secularism, and a reminder of the humanity that survives even in the midst of war.
The priest becomes an important presence throughout the family’s journey, offering help and humanity as their world collapses around them.
When the family finally reunite, their time together is brief. Ahilan and his sister Madhu are killed. Later, Abi insists on performing funeral rites for her brother, despite being warned that commemorating an LTTE member is forbidden. When she persists, the consequences are devastating. Abi and her husband Himal are subsequently killed.
It raises one of the production’s most unsettling questions: who gets to decide which dead are worthy of mourning?
The revolving stage is particularly effective in conveying the family’s displacement. Characters walk as the world literally turns beneath them. Places change, years pass and family members become separated by geography and circumstance. At times, it seems as though they are walking endlessly, capturing the exhausting uncertainty of displacement and the search for somewhere safe to stop.
The live Carnatic music adds another emotional layer. Musicians Arjunan Puveendran, Aswin Selvanathan and Hari Sivanesan are part of the theatrical world rather than simply accompanying it. The music moves between tenderness, foreboding and grief, giving the production a distinct emotional pulse.
The performances are strong throughout. Anandavalli brings dignity and emotional depth to Gowrie, the blindfolded mother who becomes the emotional centre of the story.
Prakash Belawadi is especially compelling, moving between the father, the priest and a fellow traveller with ease and conviction. Emma Harvie, Nadie Kammallaweera, Shiv Palekar, Dushan Philips, Kalieaswari Srinivasan and Rajan Velu complete an ensemble that turns one family’s experience into a much larger portrait of war, survival and separation.
Displacement is a heavy subject, and The Jungle and the Sea does not pretend otherwise. Nor does it offer easy resolution. Instead, it asks us to consider what remains after war: memory, grief, fractured families and the struggle to rebuild a life somewhere else.
For an Australian audience, that carries particular weight. Refugee stories often begin with arrival in a new country. The Jungle and the Sea takes us back to what came before, to the people, places and lives left behind.
And that may be its greatest strength. Behind the politics and history is something profoundly simple: a family that once laughed together and assumed they would remain together.
The Jungle and the Sea is playing at Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, from 14 August to 12 September 2026.
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