• Mind Adventures stages Lot Vekemans’ intimate two-hander at Geoffrey Bawa Space, exploring love, loss, and the words left unsaid

Grief rarely announces itself cleanly. It arrives unevenly, lingers awkwardly, and often resists resolution. Theatre, at its most honest, does not try to tidy that experience, but to explore it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Mind Adventures Theatre Company’s upcoming production of ‘Poison’ by Lot Vekemans does precisely that. Staged at the Geoffrey Bawa Space this February, the play brings two people into a room nearly a decade after a devastating loss and asks them to speak the words they never managed to say.

‘Poison’ is a two-hander. An intimate play with a cast of two – a play without spectacle or the other trappings of theatre to hide behind; just conversation, memory, and emotional weight carried through language. 

For the play’s director and one of the two leads Tehani Chitty, the appeal of the text lay in its restraint. She came across the work through an article referencing a film adaptation, which noted the story had begun life as a play. “It was so simple,” she said. “Two people in conversation with each other. The language is very conversational, but as simple as it is, it carries a lot. It’s cleverly written.”

Chitty was drawn to the play’s refusal to rush grief towards resolution. “I wanted to explore the themes of grief and some sort of peace,” she said. At the centre of the play is love, and what remains when love has nowhere to go. 

“The cornerstone is love,” Chitty noted. “Grief is a result of love. The play explores it through this relationship where they’ve had different kinds of losses and griefs, and they both deal with it very differently. People grieve differently and sometimes those differences can clash.”

No-frills theatre

For Ashan Dias, the other lead in ‘Poison,’ the play marks a deliberate return to theatre after a long gap. Having spent years working across film, television, and presenting, he was looking to reconnect with the stage. 

“I really wanted to do one theatre production this year,” he said. While considering a few Sinhala theatre options, he heard that Mind Adventures was producing ‘Poison.’ 

“I heard Tehani was directing, and I’ve been a big fan of hers for over 20 years, so I went and did an audition before I even read the script. Knowing that it was an intimate story, two people exploring real issues and real relationships, the type of theatre with no frills to hide behind, just human emotions and human relationships,” Dias said. 

He added that that lack of embellishment shaped the entire experience because there was nowhere to hide; it was just the actors and the audience.

That exposure extends into the rehearsal room. Chitty, who is directing her first production with a cast of two, described entering the process with some hesitation. 

“As much as I threw myself into it, I was concerned and wondering what I’d got myself into,” she said. “But it’s not been as hard as I thought. A lot of that is to do with Ashan. It’s been a collaboration. I don’t have to be the one making all the decisions. That’s how directing should be anyway. He’s such a professional and brings a wealth of experience, and I don’t really feel the pressure anymore.”

In a production without an ensemble to diffuse attention, the relationship between performers becomes structural. “The connection between the actors becomes super important,” Chitty said. “It’s always important, no matter the cast size, but in this case you have to build a relationship that holds the audience.”

The experience of ‘Poison’

The choice of venue reinforces that intention. Geoffrey Bawa Space is not a conventional theatre, and that decision is deliberate. 

“We’ve never gone for conventional venues,” Chitty said. “It’s always been about what’s right for the script and the story.” The space allows the audience to sit close to the emotional exchange, reducing the distance between performer and witness.

The performance schedule has also been shaped with care. The production runs across two weekends rather than a single continuous stretch. 

“We wanted to tell as many people as we could, but also give ourselves time in between,” Chitty explained. “There needs to be room to reset, and then come back the next week.” 

Opening on Valentine’s weekend was intentional, aligning the play’s exploration of love and loss with an occasion often associated with simplified versions of both.

Neither Chitty nor Dias frame the production around a defined message. The intention is experiential rather than instructive. 

“There’s something powerful about seeing your life witnessed on an interpersonal level,” Chitty said. “When you go to the theatre and see actors play something that connects with you deeply, it’s a feeling of being seen. That’s what I hope the audience takes from ‘Poison,’ and I hope that we as actors can be authentic in our portrayal to the point where the watcher can say ‘I’ve felt that’ or ‘That’s me up there.’”

Dias hopes audiences recognise fragments of their own lives in the exchange. “It’s not normal for people to not have gone through sadness or grief in some way,” he said. He also pointed to the way the staging altered the audience relationship. “It’s not like sitting in a big auditorium watching something unfold separately. Hopefully they’ll feel like it’s happening among them, rather than on stage.”

‘Poison’ does not promise comfort or closure. It offers attention. To grief as lived experience. To love as something that persists even when relationships fracture. And to the quiet intensity of two people finally speaking after years of silence. For those reasons, it is a production worth sitting with.