Worlds Collide, Stoppard Style, in U.S. Premiere of ‘Indian Ink’

Tom Stoppard is the reigning literary detective of our day. His latest play to land in America, the relaxed, ruefully witty “Indian Ink” (1995), snoops around the circumstances of the creation of a nude portrait painted in the early 1930s by Nirad Das (Art Malik), an Indian steeped in all things British.

This proud Anglophile’s subject, and Stoppard’s, is Flora Crewe (Susan Gibney), scandalous English poet, young but in failing health. On doctor’s orders, Flora has arrived in the (fictional) principality of Jummapur in the waning years of the British Raj. Her letters home to her sister, Eleanor, reveal the curiosity and delight of a celebrity on her own passage to India.

The U.S. premiere of “Indian Ink” continues through March 21 at the splendid Geary Theater in an impressive, if somewhat languid, American Conservatory Theater production. March 21 is also the night of the Academy Awards, and Stoppard, co-author of “Shakespeare in Love,” another instance of literary (or screenwriterly) detective fiction, is favored to win an Oscar. He is both a man of the moment and, more hearteningly, a craftsman whose work is finding larger and larger audiences without getting dumber.

The play is a series of conversations, spun out over three hours, two countries (India and England), two time periods (the ‘30s and the ‘80s), on the subjects of British imperialism, art, and rasa (Sanskrit for “juice,” or essence). The precise relationship between painter and subject; the events leading up to and following the portrait itself: These are the devices Stoppard employs here. On a grander, deeper scale, he played similar detective games in “Arcadia” (1993), his masterwork (well, one of them; a recent one). Both plays feature modern-day academics sharing the stage with the objects of their fascination. In “Indian Ink” it’s an American, Eldon Pike (Ken Grantham), who in the 1980s travels to England to learn more about Flora from her surviving sister, Eleanor (Jean Stapleton).

In pursuit of his project, a “Collected Letters of Flora Crewe” volume, Pike fancies himself a rumpled Sherlock, doping out the truth behind his chosen subject’s achievements. Born to footnote and collate, Eldon misses the essence of his subject. He keeps getting her wrong. History’s like that, Stoppard believes. It’s destined to remain mysterious.

To be sure, “Indian Ink” won’t travel as well internationally as “Arcadia” has; its ruminations by design don’t deliver that earlier play’s dazzle. Like the affair anchoring “Shakespeare in Love,” the unfolding relationships between Flora and Das, between Flora and a British captain (David Conrad) ask a kind of sustained question. How does passion rule our lives, our work? What is the cost if it does? If it doesn’t?

This is an exceptionally challenging play to cast in America. After a series of negotiations with the actors’ unions of America and England, A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff secured Malik--who originated the role of Das in London--for this staging. He was worth the trouble. Best known for TV’s “The Jewel in the Crown” and, alas, as the disposable Third World bad guy in the movie “True Lies,” Malik’s an actor of charm, telling reserve, easy charisma. So is Firdous Bamji, who plays Das’ son, Anish, another visitor decades later to the home of Flora’s sister.

“It makes me so cross that she missed it all,” says Eleanor of her late sister’s newfound literary respect. “Nobody gave tuppence about her while she was alive, except to get her knickers off.”

As Flora, Gibney tends to indulge herself in ways that don’t illuminate character; she’s so squirrelly, she seems to be auditioning for “The Boy Friend.” An actress of considerable technical facility, Gibney pours extra sauce over every wide-eyed chortle; it’s too much for this sort of play, which is dependent on a subtler brand of buoyancy.

Director Perloff is smart enough not to treat “Indian Ink” like a romp, though she errs in rolling each scene out to the same steady rhythm. “Indian Ink” may deal with themes and references alien to some American audiences, but it’s not that hard a piece. You get the feeling at times Perloff and company are intent on making everything ultra-clear every second. With Stoppard, half the fun is running to catch the train.

That said, Perloff’s staging is otherwise intelligent in ways that go beyond the quality of the designs. Taking his cue from the vibrant hues of Das’ portrait, scenic designer Loy Arcenas deploys a series of two-dimensional panels, bright with splotches of blue, green and gold, evoking an abstract image of India and England combined. Michael Roth’s elegant score likewise combines instrumentation and moods of both lands.

The two remain worlds apart, but Stoppard revels in how one land has forever transformed another. British imperialist arrogance typically gets treated with far more anger than Stoppard brings to it (especially if David Hare’s in the room). “Indian Ink,” a leisurely expansion of Stoppard’s leaner, more schematic radio play “In the Native State,” may not be a major work, but its contemplation of native states of all kinds--geographical, emotional, sensual--nonetheless takes you somewhere, as only a first-rate writer’s work can.

* “Indian Ink,” Geary Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Tickets $19-$55. (415) 749-2228. Ends March 21. Running time: 3 hours.