The House of In Between Theatre Royal, Stratford East

THE HIJRA in India regard themselves as neither male nor female and as a “third gender,” they dance, entertain and earn their living by bestowing blessings at christenings and weddings.

Sevan K Greene’s new play focuses on their struggles in Patna, the second largest city in India, as it follows the fortunes of the hijra clan led by Uma (Esh Alladi).

Historically, the hijra were respected figures but 2016 sees Uma’s clan begging, undertaking sex work and dancing for tourists who don’t understand their history or traditions but who enjoy the spectacle they provide.

Initially Greene is at pains to show the clan as a family, with all the closeness and fraughtness that entails. But there’s a tragic past binding these characters together and when mysterious stranger Dev (Lucie Shorthouse) turns up, tensions come to the boil. At best, the play asks fascinating questions about gender and social hierarchies in modern India.

But, in maintaining the air of mystery around past clan members, the narrative lacks clarity. After the interval, as events speed up, rape, murder and fiery death drive the play into realms of the overblown.

The strongest elements of the story are realised in the dance sequences communicating the history of the hijra.

When Uma remembers the past, she dances it and it’s striking that dance also mediates the play’s investigation of the relationship between history and the present — Uma wants to stick with traditional dancing and reacts angrily when Shalini Peiris’s Leela proposes something more contemporary.

While initially the play explores the complex and layered set of relationships, in the second act the big dramatic moments subordinate character development.

A shame, but the performances by the whole cast are engaging and charismatic and the visually arresting world that director Pooja Ghai, lighting designer James Whiteside, set and costume designer Diego Pitarch and choreographer Seeta Patel create consistently engages.

More importantly, it does not pull the focus away from the fascinating world of the hijra and the important questions about our binary gender systems — which some might find dull in comparison — that their existence demands of us.

Katherine M Graham