Abhishek Majumdar’s 9 Kinds of Silence to Make World Premiere Off-Broadway

Bangalore and Abu Dhabi-based playwright-director Abhishek Majumdar will make his New York debut with 9 Kinds of Silence, which is set to begin previews at 122CC’s Second Floor Theatre on September 7 ahead of an official opening on September 18. Performances are scheduled through October 8. This world premiere drama is being presented by PlayCo, the company behind last season’s Lunch Bunch.

According to an official description, “9 Kinds of Silence is set in a military tent on the shore of a country that is winding down a multi-year war. The play is the story of a Mother who works for the homeland on intake for returning soldiers, and a Son returning from combat. We don’t know if they are mother and son, we don’t know their political beliefs. We do know that they have to discover, over the course of one night, the language to describe to each other what they’ve seen in the years the war has raged on in the name of nationalism, and a dictator—who operates a democracy meant to preserve an illusion of freedom—has arisen. 9 Kinds of Silence deals with sound and silence as means of protest, control, and subjugation. Majumdar explores our need, as nation states, to invent new enemies, and the extreme cost of nationalism that forces us to speak its language in a world where human silence is the last resort of authentic humanity.”

Majumdar also directs the piece, which will feature Palestinian-Israeli actress Hend Ayoub (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo on Broadway) as the Mother, and Joe Joseph (The Kite Runner on Broadway) as the Son.

The creative team includes Jian Jung (set and costume designer) Emma Deane (lighting designer), and M. Florian Staab (composer and sound designer).