A young boy sits at a bare interrogation table, wearing a confused, teary-eyed expression. Sitting across him is a woman. He is charged with committing a heinous murder, but despite the seemingly irrefutable evidence against him, he vehemently denies having done it. She attempts to draw out his innermost thoughts to understand the reason for his behaviour. The innocence of youth and the boy’s good looks clearly work in his favour. Suddenly, in a burst of anger, the boy’s inherent violent streak bursts through, changing the calm setting into one fraught with tension and fear.
This is a scene from a new play that opened in Delhi—SHADOWed. It is a gripping psychological thriller and courtroom drama produced by Samar Sarila and Vidushi Mehra. “We chose to confront themes that are often brushed under the carpet—mental health, trauma, and the complexity of truth,” explains Mehra. Inspired by the 1996 film Primal Fear, the story is set in present day Delhi and follows 18-year-old Aryan Singhania, played by Shivam Sahni. He is accused of murdering his uncle. Victor Roy (Sarila) is a defence lawyer with a spectacular success rate and a penchant for successfully representing diehard criminals. He takes up Singhania’s case despite the overwhelming evidence. On the other side of the room is Jaya Anand (Mehra), a principled and determined public prosecutor, with a long history of going toe-to-toe with her nemesis, Roy. The ensemble cast rounds off with Dr Vineeta Varma (Preeti Agarwal Mehta), a clinical psychiatrist roped in to examine the accused’s mental health.
What follows is a tight hourlong exposition of the varying stages of a criminal trial—the initial questioning by the arrogant defence attorney; the scared boy vehemently professing his innocence; the attorney’s experiments with innovative lines of defence—the possible presence of a third person, the boy’s amnesia and mental health issues—when the evidence overwhelmingly points to the boy; aggressive verbal arguments in court where both parties sling mud at each other, and finally, the unexpected denouement. Complex themes of mental health and sexual abuse are tackled along the way. Above all, the idea of dispensing cookie-cutter justice guided by the prevalent system of jurisprudence is questioned, as summarised by Sarila’s character: “The system assumes they’re guilty. You don’t know. You don’t ask. You don’t care. You do your job which is to defend their innocence until they are proven guilty.” With psychological thrillers always garnering a ready audience, it’s a genre that many may consider safe, even if it is hard to pull off. However, Mehra feels some shock value is needed “to get people away from their TVs.” Sarila sums up the charm of the show: “SHADOWed is a mirror to the times we live in. The play challenges perceptions and blurs the lines between guilt and innocence, power and vulnerability. It’s an intense journey.”