New Delhi, Aug. 9 -- Over 20 actors-all on stage together at times-are in sync relaying the chaos that comes with a wild albeit deeply political satire. Music interludes elevate the crowd scenes or craft moments of intimacy and idiocy around a horse. The horse is called Incitatus and has Rome-and specifically its notorious emperor Caligula (Akash Khurana)-in a tizzy. After all, no one's ever seen an animal so magnificent. The last in Aadyam Theatre's Season 7 is a play by veteran director Sunil Shanbag featuring horse heads and halters too.

Shanbag first read Hungarian playwright Julius Hay's The Horse in the 1980s. It was one of three in a collection of Eastern European plays published by Penguin. The other two were by noted Czech write...