After the curtain call of the first of two performances of Alex & Eliza at the Traverse, writer, director and co-performer Umar Butt encouraged appreciative members of the audience to do a St Francis of Assisi and spread the word on social media because, although he has received support from ARC Stockton and Arts Council England, his company is, as he put it, “tiny”.

That may be so, but his heart, like that of his fellow performers Danny Charles and Seweryna Dudzińska is as big as the gulf between a corner shop in Glasgow and a rice field in Agra which is where his charming tale about his eponymous grandparents sway back and forth in time and place.

And judging by the floods of tears (both joyous and sad) in the shadows of studio two, if he is looking to fund a future tour I am sure an approach to Kleenex wouldn’t be sniffed at.

With his parents attending a Muslim convention in Manchester, the guitar-strumming Umar is tasked with picking up his grandmother from Glasgow airport as she arrives from Pakistan. It is the first time she has left her homeland, she tells him, through a combination of four different languages which are reduced to English because, well, “we can’t really afford subtitles”. The first of many comical asides.

But who is this “stranger” with beads in her hand and prayer on her lips? And what does she know of music and dreams, as Umar prepares for a Fame audition?

Through the power of storytelling, the seamless shifting in and out of multiple characters and an engaging live score by Laura Stutter (under the direction of Ross Clark) which wraps round the text like a sari, the seventy-five minute “sharing” covers some distance in terms of geography, politics and themes.

The essence of which is that race and religion, class and culture, and as touched upon towards the end sexuality, should not be seen as barriers to love and understanding.

Sadly, they often are. As demonstrated in a powerful example of “show, don’t tell” when a series of scarves are forced from a knot before being dropped to the ground to depict the brutal murder of women and girls at the hands of their husbands and fathers who would rather kill their beloved than let them be raped by their enemies.

“Without chaos there is no beauty,” says Umar, as he reflects upon the ugly twists and turns of his family tree from partition to modern-day slurs of “paki”. I’m not so sure. But chaos certainly makes you appreciate beauty. And there was certainly plenty of both in the secret past of his grandparents Alex and Eliza whose memory he honours with honesty, humour and hope.

Peter Callaghan
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