2025 Audience Reviews

Company: SAATH
Show: Manasu - Echoes of the Mind
Venue: Rarig Nolte Xperimental Theatre

A brave and contemplative piece MANASU

Manasu is a beautifully crafted narrative that normalizes the very human emotions of love, loss, and grief with striking honesty and compassion. Congratulations to debutant playwright Divya Maiya and SAATH on putting forth this deeply intimate and evocative theatrical work that courageously delves into themes of identity, parenthood, loss, and the layered realities of South Asian lives. Written with vulnerability and precision, the play succeeds in creating a space for reflection and recognition, especially for audiences who rarely see their inner emotional lives represented on stage. In just 60 minutes, the playwright skillfully explores "unspoken grief and complex love," inviting the audience into quiet corners of the human experience. The stories within Manasu are written with raw honesty rooted in personal truth but transcend the individual, making them universally resonant. One of the most striking and creative aspects of Manasu is its use of Sanskrit sayings and rangoli designs. These artistic elements are more than decorative; they serve as powerful metaphors and cultural anchors. The Sanskrit phrases offer poetic resonance, grounding the play’s emotional and philosophical themes in centuries of wisdom, while the rangoli patterns, traditionally drawn to welcome and protect, become a symbolic backdrop for stories of memory, identity, and transformation. It's a brave and contemplative piece, and as the playwright notes, it also signals a bold new direction for SAATH. This debut work not only challenges conventional storytelling but reaffirms the power of community-centered theater to heal, witness, and transform. Manasu is a heartfelt invitation to listen—both to the characters and to parts of ourselves we often keep buried.