Belvoir St Theatre

In paintings dating back to the 18th century, the Nayika (the heroine) can be seen with her Sakhi (her confidante). In ancient Tamil poetry, songs and dance forms such as Bharatanatyam, the cherished Sakhi – the friend, accomplice, and at times, the witness – is a catalyst for the heroine to wrestle with and ultimately to accept her truth. It is thus fitting that in Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell’s Nayika: A Dancing Girl, we meet our heroine (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash – Counting and Cracking) as she is reconnecting with her childhood best friend. Beginning with a meeting over over-priced entrees in Sydney, the story explores bursts of the forgotten joy and sorrow the pair shared in Chennai, India, over four formative years as our heroine learned about love, met a boy, began a relationship and ultimately escaped its perils with her own scars. Satchell and Nagarajan’s script is moving, humorous and sensitive in its exploration of heartbreak and trauma. With dramaturgy support from Nick Enright Prize winner S Shakthidaran (the creator of critically acclaimed works Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea), Satchell and Nagarajan’s script is moving, humorous and sensitive in its exploration of heartbreak and trauma. As the only actor on stage, Suryaprakash is a captivating performer – she utilises accents effectively to indicate shifts in time and place, and is infinitely expressive as a smitten 13-year-old, finding the giddy exasperation of love with ease.  On the violin