Harvest

East Coast Artists present Harvest, written by Manjula Padmanabhan, and directed by Benjamin Mosse. Winner of an Onassis Award for best new international play, the work is an Orwellian story of seduction by the wealth of the West and the human costs involved.

The play is an ironic, sci-fi examination of the relations between developing and developed countries. Set in the imminent future, Harvest imagines a grisly pact between the first and third worlds, in which desperate people can sell their body parts to wealthy clients in return for food, water, shelter and riches for themselves and their families. As such, it is a play about how the “first” world cannibalizes the “third” world to fulfill its own desires.

The story, centers on Om, who signs up to be an organ donor for an American woman named Ginni because there are no other jobs available for him in Mumbai. Ginni pays him to lead a “clean” and “healthy” life so she can harvest healthy organs whenever she needs them. She begins to control every aspect of Om’s life, from when and what he eats to whom he sees and how he uses the bathroom. In fact, Ginni comes to control the entire family until the end of the play, when Om’s diseased brother, Jeetu, is taken to give organs instead of Om, and the recipient, Ginni, turns out to not be what she initially seemed. In a final act of defiance, the seeds of rebellion flower in a “checkmate” ploy by Om’s wife, Jaya.