Learning to leave history behind to find the light at the end of the trauma.

For most Singaporeans, India’s Partition is stuck firmly in the past, and having taken place in a land so physically distant from our island city, seems like it would have little impact on us in the present day. But for those with relatives or ancestors living in India or Pakistan, the reverberations of such a climactic event are still felt even today, with the trauma generated at the time inherited and passed down in subtle ways to one’s descendants.

In The Necessary Stage’s Eclipse, playwright Haresh Sharma explores this longstanding, far-reaching impact by telling the story of three generations of men in the wake of Partition. Directed by A Yagnya, this staging of Eclipse adopts a pared down approach, where the focus is squarely on the script and the sole actor playing all three men – Shrey Bhargava. The only other person onstage is Hindustani vocalist Sveta Kilpady, who provides song to heighten the atmosphere, and tabla beats to represent everything from explosions to fireworks.

The main character of Eclipse is a young Singaporean man making a journey to his father’s birthplace in Hyderabad, Pakistan. With him are his father’s ashes, but with no real idea where exactly his father lived or where he would scatter them. As he journeys forth, he speaks of his life growing up and his difficult relationship with his father, often finding themselves awkward and distant, unable to understand or speak to each other. It is a life etched by tragedy, including a mother lost at a young age, vividly described and expressed in Sharma’s script, and explains the man’s own fears. He is well-spoken, dressed smart, showcases dry wit, and is overall a charming enough narrator to guide us through the duration of the story.

Along the way, Eclipse expands on that idea of trauma by having Shrey embody and perform the stories of his character’s father and grandfather as well, and their own intersecting narratives, as he adopts a thicker accent and a change in physicality. The man’s grandfather essentially abandons India before Partition, leaving behind a wife and children as he searches for new opportunities abroad in Japan, where he settles down with a new family. The man’s father, one of the children left behind, grows up in an embittered India, where he witnesses his own mother standing in their burning house while the riots erupt around them, refusing to leave until her husband returns home. There are clear parallels between both the closeness of the man and his mother, and his father and late grandmother, alongside the idea of a ‘motherland’ left alone, much like how the British leave India in a state of chaos following Partition.

Director Yagnya’s decision to adopt such a pared down approach to the show can prove challenging for both audiences and Eclipse’s performers, who shoulder the mammoth task of engaging the audience with eyes on them the entire time. There are times that Shrey cannot totally differentiate between father and grandfather characters, particularly when the changes are sudden with no segue in-between, while also reverting to grammatically accurate English (made even clearer with the surtitles), as opposed to the language tinged with the influence of a foreign tongue. This is made particularly challenging due to how all three narratives keep swapping between one another, across different moments in time and history. Shrey is strongest when playing the protagonist, but there are times he sounds distant, deliberately playing it up as he tells his story, as opposed to the far stronger snatches of sincerity we hear when the character is gripped by genuine emotion, such as stepping into Pakistan for the first time, a mix of uncertainty and wonder at his father’s birthplace.

This sense of detachment is in part also due to how Haresh’s script itself is rather ambitious for one so short, attempting to flesh out all three men in their entirety over the course of an hour. The strongest parts of Eclipse emerge when it chooses to explore the relationship between the man and his father, that universally relatable idea of the bugbear of family, and tension between obligations and being aloof. There are particularly interesting moments that never make full use of their potential, such as how the man’s divorce and later, new Muslim partner, go over so easily with his father, and with how they’re treated more as matter-of-fact facets of his personality, add little narrative thrust to Eclipse. The father on the other hand, is often reduced to a happy immigrant when he finds his success in Singapore, defined by his own trauma left by the man’s grandfather, and his own frayed relationship with the man, leaving him caught between two worlds, often at the mercy of those around him rather than having a fully fleshed out character.

Eclipse really finds its stride towards the end, when the man reaches Pakistan and finds himself in an odd situation, where a Pakistani man brings him to a house, his father’s ashes still in hand, while the rest of the townsfolk father around to gawk at this strange Singaporean man. Sharma’s language is particularly evocative here, and Shrey’s performance peaks as he describes the curious chaos of it all. There is the sense of peace, the bridging of two worlds and the mending of wounds, even if the man does not entirely understand the language, they are still connected by a common history, as he cannot help but call his partner to gush over the moment, and makes a decision on where to scatter the remains of his father.

In that sense, Eclipse ends on a note of healing. It is only through this pilgrimage that the man finally seems to take the chance to reflect on his relationship with his father, and find what little ties he can by stepping into his world. In doing so, he leaves behind the painful past and history of abandonment to physically be present in this country that once seemed so far away after being cut off by time and space. As the singer’s voice soars again, Shrey wraps himself in a shroud, warm, as if hearing his mother’s voice again. Eclipse tries to be a complex play, pulling itself in too many directions in trying to unpack so much of the visceral damage caused by Partition and the ethnic violence that emerged from it. But in truth, it really is more about basic human connection, and not allowing our scars to define us, and to be reminded to step out into the sun from the shadow of pain.

Photo credit: Tuckys Photography

Read our interview with The Necessary Stage here

Eclipse played from 15th to 18th January 2025 at The Theatre Practice Black Box.

The 2025 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival ran from 8th to 19th January 2025. More information available here

To contribute towards the Fringe Festival Fund, visit donate.necessary.org or Giving.sg.

Production Credits:

Playwright Haresh Sharma Director A Yagnya Performer Shrey Bhargava Hindustani Vocalist Sveta Kilpady Set & Lighting Coordinator Faith Liu Yong Huay Production Manager Celestine Wong Stage Manager Jasmine Khaliesah Assistant Stage Manager Wee Nee Costume Coordinator Tan Jia Hui Captioner Yap She Fong Project Manager Nicole Lim