For I Have Sinned: College Play Meets Homicidal In-Laws

The light is dim as butlers shuffle in, one after the other. An eerie narration spells out a single warning— enter if you dare. I gladly enter, and what do I find? A bride caked in blood. Two swords hung like a family emblem above royally framed portraits. A mother obsessed with her son, a granddaughter obsessed with her grandfather, and Aunt Marge’s cackling, maniacal laughter. 

On 18th December, For I Have Sinned, an original theatrical production directed by Zahabiya Ghodhrawala (UG’29) and Vaibhavi Kumari (UG’29), was performed at the Black Box Theatre. Brought to life by Ashoka’s theatre club, The Green Room, the entire team worked together to stage a blood-soaked, witty horror piece. The writing team worked through the entirety of the midterm break and pulled references from various pieces of media before settling on the 2019 film Ready or Not as the closest tonal reference. Eventually, many alterations and modifications were made to the original, and For I Have Sinned took on a face of its own. In conversation with the writing team, it became clear just how different some early choices had been, “one of our earliest drafts, for example, actually ended with Mira letting Vincent go instead of killing him. But judging by the audience’s reaction during the final performance, Mira killing Vincent was absolutely the stronger choice— it landed exactly the way we hoped it would.” Concurrently, production manager Anika Kumar (UG’29), along with Kanak Kusum (UG’29), used set design to conjure the world of a long-established, aristocratic family. Wooden dividers encircled the boundary of the White Box, encapsulating the expansive house of the De Montes. Green drapes greeted the audience as the backdrop, a halo of orange lanterns above their heads, and countless butlers shuffling in and out to escort the growing pile of dead bodies, providing a comedic rhythm to everything. 

At the centre of the chaos stood Mira Bakshi, performed by Antara Kulkarni (UG’28), who did utter justice to the psychological unravelling her character endures. Caught between the absurdity of her surroundings, she evolves from being the innocent, accidental killer to an intentional one with her final choice at the end of the play. “My favourite part about acting as Mira Bakshi in the play was the numerous intense moments with the other actors and the creative space I was given to crash out and kill them.” Meanwhile, hand in hand stands Vincent de Monte, the prodigal dropout returned with his runaway bride, performed by Vishwa Krishnan (UG’28). And as they come together, they craft a play that is loud in its confrontations yet silent in the almost-absent darkness between each act. With so little time spent in the dark, this is a play that moves— across arguments, across gunshots, and across the lineage of this wealthy Portuguese family that can’t seem to let go of their purity. What struck me most was that we, as the audience, were part of the ongoing mise en scène. As rooms dissolved and reassembled— we witnessed it all. This is a household that explains nothing— not to one another, and certainly not to the innocent bride. Mira runs and takes shelter with us as she flees from the deranged aunt. She rustles up a torch from nowhere while Aunt Marge points her gun successively at the audience. People die without consequence. Tears are shed and forgotten about. There is a secret, and we are led right into it from the first scene.

Lights, managed by Noyonika Dutta (UG’27) and Navya Mokashi (UG’28), added visual depth to each unfolding act. When asked about the vision behind the lightwork, Noyonika (UG’27)— also a part of the writing team— tells us, “Lighting this play was definitely a challenge, and I knew it would be from the start. We had three games, each with its own mood and nuance, and working within the limitations of the Black Box console meant things could get tricky... and they did. I was flipping through cues constantly, and there were moments when everything felt like it was breaking down at once. Thankfully, I had Navya with me. We kept each other grounded whenever things got overwhelming.” 

Tension stretched taut across the stage as they ventured into these games, and ultimately, it snapped with Hide and Seek, when the bride finally cracks, bashing in the mother’s head. Her once-white dress, now the colour of crushed pomegranates, glistening under a red glow as she emerges from behind the couch. Ultimately, For I Have Sinned stands out as a witty, horror-comedy that delighted the audience. And as Antara describes the joy of being on the other side of the stage in her first acting role, I felt it too while watching— the thrill of witnessing the De Montes collectively unravel.

“Fucking in-laws.”

(Edited by Maya Ribeiro and Giya Sood.)