Kathmandu, May 23 -- Intriguing is the word, an adjective, that came to my mind as One World Theatre's newest production Brief Candle by the Indian playwright Mahesh Dattani drew to an emotional close. The play's subheading-A Dance between Love and Death-was aptly provided by Dattani himself, when the play was first published in 2010.

Because that is indeed what the play is: a dance between two theatrical genres-comedy and tragedy.

A cast of eight, deftly directed by Rose Schwietz, delivers a production that sometimes sags under the weight of sentimental cliches but more often it rises to moments of sheer delight, all the while succeeding through the juxtaposition of two distinct genres. It is only after about twenty minutes into the pl...