On a mysterious, lonely island somewhere across the seas, someone has been murdered— and one by one, many more follow, until there are none. The synopsis sounds eerily familiar to anyone who has devoured a murder mystery or two. This is none other than Agatha Christie’s world-famous And Then There Were None. But in this version, the bodies aren’t human — they’re orange-headed puppets. A puppetry trio in Delhi takes Christie’s dark classic and spins it into a comical, chaotic puppet thriller, replacing people with felt, foam, and a whole lot of introspection.
Titled Orange Juice and written by Anamika Mishra, this glove puppetry production is helmed by puppeteers Anurupa Roy, BV Shrunga, and Anirbaan Ghosh. The play opened to a full house this weekend at Delhi’s OddBird Theatre.
“We called it Orange Juice because all the puppets are oranges,” says Roy. “In the show, it’s fruits that are being murdered. It’s a metaphor. Fruit is ordinary, common, disposable — much like people. We’re trying to explore the idea that death, while tragic, is also deeply mundane. It happens all the time.”
Roy has long wanted to stage a murder mystery, and as a Christie fan, this adaptation felt like the perfect fit. “It’s one of Christie’s darker works,” she says. “The novel's darkness lends itself well to dark humour. But at the end of the day, our puppetry show is still a comedy.”
Crisis and comic relief
Beyond the orange gore, Orange Juice also explores human psyche, and how we respond to mortality and chaos. “If you’re trapped in a house with an anonymous killer picking people off, how do you react?” Roy asks. “Do you panic? Do you spiral? Or start reflecting on your life in ways you never have before?”
Set against a backdrop of a world in constant crisis, the show holds up a mirror to human behaviour. “It’s about how quickly we judge, how swiftly we punish,” says Roy. “We saw this during Covid — a silent killer moving among us. But even now, there are constant perceived threats and emotional triggers. And we respond with this frenzied emotion.”
Social media, too, plays a role in this examination. “We see someone online and instantly decide they deserve consequences,” Roy says. “We appoint ourselves judge, jury, executioner — without knowing the full story. We’ve lost the ability to pause and ask, ‘Is there another perspective?’”
Laughter with a side of reflection
Despite these introspective themes, the play leans hard into absurd comedy — after all, they’re oranges. “It’s not all serious — there’s a lot of slapstick too,” Roy says. “Glove puppets are perfect for exaggerated physical comedy. That’s the heart of the play. It’s dark and funny. It’s absurd and emotional. It’s this wild little space where oranges die and people confront themselves.”
The humour comes not just from the visuals, but the personalities of the puppets, like one of the characters being an Instagram influencer. “You start to recognise certain archetypes — exaggerated, but familiar,” she says. “And of course, the fact that they’re oranges adds another layer of ridiculousness. One gets diced. Another gets peeled. It’s macabre, but in a playful way.”
The trio's main goal was to make people laugh, a goal they nailed on opening night. “We were honestly a bit nervous, wondering, ‘What if we’re the only ones who find this funny?’” Roy admits. “But it was such a relief to see the audience laughing too.”
Still, they hope the laughter leaves behind something more. “We all judge and jump to conclusions. I catch myself doing it too — typing out a sharp comment online, then later rethinking it. We’re in a weird moment where everyone’s scared of being judged, yet quick to judge others. I think people will relate to that — or at least pause and think about it.”
“It’s not that the play has a ‘message’ in the traditional sense,” Roy concludes. “It’s more about the feeling underneath it all — the absurdity, the reflection, the fun.”
Catch Orange Juice at Oddbird Theatre, 9 Dhan Mill, Chattarpur today at 7.30 pm