THE OCCIDENTAL TOURIST Forster’s Brits navigate India.

Photo: Anna Bahow

A pair of British women travels to India during the British Raj; Mrs. Moore (O’Dowd) hopes to marry Adela Quested (Myers) to her son Ronny, a provincial official. Much to the horror of their fellow Brits, Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore befriend some of the Indian natives, including an ebullient young doctor named Aziz (Hans). Miss Quested yearns to discover “the real India,” but it ends up overwhelming her. After an excursion to the Marabar caves, she accuses Dr. Aziz of sexual assault; the resulting trial inflames tensions between the Indians and the British ruling class.

Forster’s 1924 novel is largely concerned with the slipperiness of perception (Miss Quested later questions herself and rescinds her charge against Dr. Aziz) and the disorienting effect of unfamiliar culture. Sherman’s adaptation captures little of this, focusing almost entirely on the British mistreatment of the Indians. The British are reduced to bigoted caricatures; there’s a sort of “thank goodness we aren’t like that anymore” self-satisfaction in Sherman’s script, of the same sort that’s often present in works looking back at America’s racial history. But Carlin-Metz’s lavishly rendered production smooths over the script’s heavy-handedness. The endlessly imaginative interplay between her strongly physical directing and Craig Choma’s scenic design (the staging of the cave scene is particularly evocative) and a crop of sturdy performances combine to make this a passage worth taking.