SWEETMEATS BY KARIM KHAN
IMAGE VIA BUSHTHEATRE.CO.UK
“SACRIFICE, DUTY AND CARE ALL FEEL SYNONYMOUS WITH WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE, ESPECIALLY FOR US DESIS…”
—KARIM KHAN
We were drawn to the unexpected love story told in Sweetmeats for how it stretches familiar ideas of romantic love, while narrowing in on the cultural contexts that give it form. Centered on two South Asian elders, the play brings into focus a kind of intimacy that is rarely foregrounded, gently shifting who is allowed to sit at the center of romantic narratives.
We asked the award-winning, Oxford-based British Pakistani playwright, Karim Khan, what drew him to this story and what he hopes audiences will take away from it. Known for his deeply personal yet strikingly universal themes across theatre and television, in works like Brown Boys Swim and Before the Millennium, Khan shared:
“Within the framework of love stories, our elders are typically the side characters or the obstacles to the love that forms between their younger counterparts. In Sweetmeats, I wanted to shatter that cliché by seeing them fall in love, dare to change and be impacted by one another. In doing so, I wanted to interrogate what it means to love. Does love need to be spoken in order for it to exist? Is it possible to fall in love again?
I don’t think there’s any straightforward answer, but I often think about how sacrifice, duty and care all feel synonymous with what it means to love, especially for us desis, and it is fundamentally our elders who have shaped our understanding of this. Sweetmeats is a love letter to them.”
In centering this story, Sweetmeats offers a chance to take note of how we picture love, where those images come from, and what else might exist beyond them.
Sweetmeats is showing at London’s Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush from 7 February to 21 March.
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