Southbank Theatre (Melbourne Theatre Company)

When Western Sydney playwright S Shakthidharan first invited us into Counting and Cracking, his collective and poetic reckoning with Sri Lanka’s devastating civil war (1983 to 2009) and the persecution of the Tamil peoples, its simple staging made way for magnetic storytelling driven by character.There was little need for bells and whistles with a voice as strong as his. Instead, the drama spun out in a dusty courtyard. The actors’ magnificent performances were enough, aided with simple props, signposts, musicians on stage and a heart of dance. Co-written and directed with Belvoir lead Eamon Flack, The Jungle and the Sea, now playing at MTC’s Southbank Theatre, looks very similar at first glance.  Once again, the transportation relies on the bare bones of a tall-walled courtyard. But there’s a huge difference in Dale Ferguson’s set design: here, there is no door, and the stone is pocked with bullet holes. So is The Jungle and the Sea spinning a similar story? Yes and no. While Counting and Cracking spent more time in Sydney, turning on its wounded heel to look back at the desperate race to escape war, here we mostly live through that horror, with a brief glimpse at a brighter future in the Harbour City.We see waves of fear and loathing crash over the island nation as the Sinhalese government brutally clamps down on the Tamil Tiger insurgency, with all-too devastating echoes of Israel’s merciless destruction of Gaza and its repeated declaration of ‘safe’ zones, only to...