Review: The Jungle and The Sea Brings A Forgotten War Into Sharp Focus

★★★½

There are moments in The Jungle and the Sea that crack right through you, that shake you out of the comfort of your theatre seat and into something devastatingly real. S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s epic companion piece to Counting and Cracking, now returning to Belvoir St Theatre, is drawn from real-life testimonies and woven with threads of the Mahabharata and Antigone.

It follows a Tamil mother, Gowrie (Anandavalli), as civil war tears her family apart over twenty-five years. The Sri Lankan civil war is not an area of history I know much about, and I suspect I’m not alone. This play’s determination to tell that story is admirable and important.

It opens with a stark, arresting image. Anandavalli stands proud against a rough wall scarred with pale bullet holes. She’s blindfolded and begins moving with graceful mudra-like hand gestures. It’s a quiet, captivating moment, the calm before the storm. A man comes on stage. “They have found the bodies.” And we move from elegant simplicity to chaos and desperation.

The family dynamics are colourful, endearing and highly relatable. Belvoir’s well-used revolving stage gives a sense of movement through time and space. Together with Dale Ferguson’s simple yet powerfully evocative set design, there’s a sense of shifting between chaos and haunting, devastating moments that stop you cold. But the chaotic ensemble scenes often lack narrative cohesion and tip into tedium.

There are sequences heightened by movement as the family treks through the jungle, suitcases over their heads, carrying a chicken in a cage, trying to keep spirits lifted as they pass sights no one should ever have to see. These images bring the reality of war into sharp focus, but the production doesn’t always give them room to breathe. The pace is relentless, and many of the more real, emotional beats are skimmed over at breakneck speed.

The true highlight is the scenes between Siva (Prakash Belawadi) and Lakshmi (Emma Harvie) as father and daughter. These two bring a grounded, humorous realism that is a much-welcome respite from the disorder around them.

Belawadi is endearing and immediately riveting as the blind father, expertly balancing dry humour with the relatable angst of a loving Sri Lankan parent. Harvie is equally engaging, bringing texture, with a running undercurrent of fear and desperation. Their dinner scene at the Opera House moves beautifully and effortlessly between comedy and real emotion. These are the most engaging scenes, and I was hoping for more of them.

At close to three hours, the story attempts to cram a lot of history into the narrative. I’m not usually a fan of mic’ing actors in live theatre, but in a large ensemble piece with heavy accents it’s warranted. Here though, the mics created a strange disconnection – a kind of disembodiment that pulled me out of moments that needed intimacy.

And yet, when the production finds stillness, it lands with real impact. Arjunan Puveendran and Steve Francis create a soundscape that builds tension as it closes in on the family. Drums stand in for bombs and gunfire, and actors simply step away as each is shot.

The choreography is disarmingly simple, but it hits hard. These are the scenes that stay with you, and they make the case for a leaner production. An hour less and a sharper focus on these quieter, more devastating beats might have given the play the rhythm it needs. The third act, which falls into extended ideological argument, loses its dramatic grip.

The Jungle and the Sea is a vibrant, heartbreaking, ambitious creation. It’s a story that demands, needs to be told. In its most profound moments, it reminds us how easy it is to slip back into the comforts of our daily lives, apparently removed from the devastating impacts of war.

Yet these stories are woven into the fabric of Australian life. These are our neighbours’ stories, and really, we are not so removed at all. 

The Jungle and The Sea is presented by Belvoir St Theatre and runs to 2 August. Upstairs Theatre, 25 Belvoir Street Surry Hills NSW 2010.

Tickets: https://my.belvoir.com.au/overview/14652

Website: https://belvoir.com.au/productions/the-jungle-and-the-sea-2026/

Socials: https://www.instagram.com/belvoirst/

Photo credits: Brett Boardman