There are, perhaps, two kinds of romance for elderly lovers. The first arrives like long‑awaited rain, sudden, electric, ablaze. It is that kind of passion re‑ignited, like moths recklessly but helplessly drawn to a flame. The other is quieter, tentative and probing, steeped in lingering sour‑bitterness. Their feelings and desires spread like the trunk’s rhizome, threading deep and far only to nourish the towering tree called reality, decency and respect. Neither is superior, but the latter for sure carries more enduring and subtle tension on stage.
This is how Sweetmeats feels. Written by Karim Khan and directed by Natasha Kathi‑Chandra, Sweetmeats tells the story of Hema (Shobu Kapoor) and Liaquat (Rehan Sheikh), two South Asians who meet at a type 2 diabetes course. The two share small, everyday encounters: chatting at the bus stop, talking about their pasts, and occasionally sharing a mango stolen from a local grocery. They fall in love.
Hema is afraid. For years, she has denied herself sweetmeats in the name of health. Indulgence is irrelevant to her. Centring her life around her husband and son, she follows a route familiar to many Asian women: dedicated, sacrificial, enduring. She is so uptight that any hint of losing control leads to insecurity; afraid of diabetes complications, afraid of going home late, and ultimately afraid of her own feelings.
Liaquat is, by contrast, more “go with the flow”. He does not really care about diabetes or his heart disease, and has no self‑control at all. But deep down there lies a profound loneliness, and indulgence in sweet treats cannot fill the empty space. Like the burning dessert in the saucepan in the first half, hopelessly sticky and stuck, his feelings are only answered by the shrill insistence of the fire alarm. His flame of desire has been reignited by Hema, but without her reciprocal recognition, it burns in vain.
Under Kathi‑Chandra’s direction, each element of the production coheres with precision. Aldo Vazquez’s design divides the stage into four sections: classroom, bus stop, Liaquat’s home and Hema’s parlour. While each set remains realistic, their spatial relations, marked by the actors’ movements, become symbolic.
You mightalso like
There is also a great deal of direct address. Hema repeatedly speaks to the audience about the course convenor, Mrs Radcliffe’s missing shortbread, while Liaquat, although never fully breaking the fourth wall, consistently engages the audience with his eyes. Hugh Sheehan’s sound design creates gentle nostalgia, fusing aptly with the pair’s inner turmoil, while Simeon Miller’s lighting design supports seamless transitions and subtly signals pivotal moments.
The emotional hallmark of the entire play, I reckon, comes when Hema finally takes a bite of the sweet Liaquat makes for her. In a South Asian cultural context where widows have historically been forbidden from eating garlic lest it “rejuvenate their lust”, the dessert becomes Hema’s own forbidden fruit. The next day, she sheds her grey coat for the first time and loosens her hair, seen anew. The pair change each other. Liaquat now knows how to measure his blood sugar, and Hema starts to recognise her feelings.
Dramaturgically, the script can be slightly repetitive, and the pacing towards the end becomes problematic: the expanded explanation of Liaquat’s already‑foreshadowed heart disease consumes the emotional richness built in the preceding climax, cutting off the emotive thread that leads to the final open ending. Still, it is helplessly romantic. Will Hema’s fleeting confession lead somewhere? It remains unknown, but perhaps it does not matter. Above the ground, the two elderly trees may stand independent and distant with a silent gaze; but deep down in the soil, their roots are already intertwined, entangled, connected. They are, in that sense, already inseparable.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
