War makes things of people. The Jungle and the Sea is about a family who refuse to become things while they are still alive.
When violence escalates between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Tamil mother vows to remain blindfolded until her family is together once again. Gowrie, Abi and Madhu search the jungles of northern Sri Lanka for estranged son Ahilan, while Siva and Lakshmi migrate to Australia for safety, awaiting their family's reunion. Separated by the ravages of civil war but buoyed by humour, playfulness and love for each other, so goes the story of many a migrant family that has wound up in Australia.
Co-writers S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack continue their collaboration that began with Counting and Cracking, threading personal testimony from the Sri Lankan civil war with two ancient epics - the Mahabharatha and Sophocles' Antigone. The war may have ended in 2009, but Tamil memory endures in The Jungle and the Sea, calling together lives that eternally revolve, intertwine and bear witness to each other.
S. Shakthidharan is a writer, director and producer of film and theatre, as well as a composer and performer of original music. He is based in Sydney, Australia.
His adaptation of The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon was premiered by Pilot Theatre on a tour of the UK in 2022.
EAMON FLACK is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. He is a director, writer, dramaturg and script developer. He was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He graduated from the acting course at WAAPA and has since worked around Australia and internationally, from the Tiwi Islands to Sri Lanka and the UK. He has led Belvoir's new work development in various guises since 2006. His directing credits include acclaimed productions of Angels in America, The Glass Menagerie and Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan) and the premiers of Rita Kalnejais's Babyteeth and Tommy Murphy's Holding the Man. His adaptations include Gorky's Summerfolk, Ibsen's Ghosts, Sophocles's Antigone, and Chekhov's Ivanov and The Cherry Orchard. He was Associate Writer on S. Shakthidharan's Counting and Cracking, winner of the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the Victorian Literary Prize and the Victorian Premier's Award for Drama. His work has won multiple Helpmann Awards and Sydney Theatre Awards.
