Tea Play

INFO

Name	Tea
Year	2018
Playwright	Ahilan Karunaharan அகிலன் கருணாகரன்
Type of Text	Play
Artform	Theatre

ABOUT

Tea is a play written by Ahilan Karunaharan. The epic family saga is told over seven interconnected stories, eras and generations, with a timeline spanning one thousand years. The novel-like play presents a series of fictionalised stories anchored in the legacies of the oft-forgotten indentured Tamil labourers in Sri Lanka. It portrays the residing impact of – and spirit of resistance to – civil war and colonisation through the choices, love and relationships of its community of characters across a sweeping influence of time periods.

The main setting of the play is a historic tea estate in Sri Lanka, whose characters’ daily experiences and mobility have been segregated by class, gender and upbringing – which ensuing generations, efforts and time periods seek to shift. The show speaks both to the daily ritualism of drinking a cup of tea, steeped in the practice of togetherness and reconciliation, as well as the layered political history involved with the exploitation of the country and its workers.

In a way, the estate itself is one of the main characters of the story: the inhabitants’ individual choices are shaped by either servitude, inheritance or allegiance to the people running the estate. A young woman, Theepa, plans her escape in order to avoid an arranged marriage that cements her commitment to the estate, with her fervent wish being to forge her own destiny. Meanwhile, her father Bala is the manager of the company, and prospers through his own arranged marriage – with his major unfulfilled desire being to see both sides of his family sat together at the same table. Shiva, the grandchild of Bala’s half-brother has watched his mother and grandmother commit backbreaking labour harvesting tea leaves at the plantation and wishes for more independent working conditions, but first he must clear his debts to the estate. For better or worse, most of them are tied to this primary location, and all are affected by the wider air of political significance around them.

“The British that brought us here have gone. But we are still here. In the exact same situation that we were generations ago. Look at the chaos they have created.”– Shiva, an entrepreneurial character of the time period set in 1949

Across the play, the estate and its characters move from British-occupied Ceylon to the unsure future of a country post-independence, to significant events such as the Black July riots where Tamil people and sites were systematically targeted. Tea offers a representation of both Tamil women and men — who are either defiant or obedient to the status quo — who seek to improve life for themselves and future generations.

“History will not mention her but she too fought for all of this.”– Theepa, a headstrong woman chasing marital freedom, of the time period set in 1977

The audience is first welcomed and guided by Sateesh through the stories, a tour guide who escorts travelling visitors Haran and his daughter Janaki around the estate and narrates the story of how we come to sit in the present moment. The family tree of characters, of which Haran and Janaki are involved, begins with the children of Devan (a character not depicted): half-brothers Ravi and Bala, who sit at opposite sides of the tea estate’s spectrum of power. It spans to one millennium after the main events – when the environment of earth has been torched beyond recognition, yet hope and promise remains in the characters, with the knowledge that tea has been cultivated throughout history and such rituals connect them to each other and the legacies they wish to cultivate. Behind the more than twenty characters' stories is “a world recovering from change”, writes reviewer Nathan Joe.

Tea is the second in a trio of scripts based around Sri Lankan history that have been written and directed by Karunaharan, preceded by The Mourning After first staged in 2011, and followed by A Mixtape for Maladies, which premiered in 2025. Reviewer Nathan Joe concludes that “More than just a love letter to his Sri Lanka, this is a cry for change and a reminder that the efforts we often fight for don’t always reap immediate rewards. Nevertheless, the seeds of change demand to be planted.”