Abortion/The End of the Apurnas

The NY premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s Abortion, with a unique
South Asian makeover, is the first full production from Rasa Theater,
co-produced by Broadway’s Bombay Dreams leading man, Manu Narayan. Also on the bill is Sarovar Banka’s The End of the Apurnas.

Abortion is the chilling one-act piece written by the late Nobel & Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Eugene O’Neill exactly ninety years ago (in 1914). In Rasa Theater’s unique South Asian adaptation of the play, director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj has transported the action to Calcutta, India, 1855. Abortion tells the story of two young men from different worlds who are connected by a secret. When Jack Townsend, a 20-year-old, upper-class Christian Indian college student, is visited by Joe Murray, a 16-year-old, lower-class Christian Indian villager, a series of tragic events are brought to light, resulting in a deadly, unexpected climax.

The End of the Apurnas is a one-act comedy about three Indian-American sisters, all named Apurna, who find interesting ways to cope with the apparent death of their nagging mother. Playwright Sarovar Banka is a rising young South Asian American writer and a 2002 graduate of Brown University.