PERFECT GANESH, A

by McNally, Terrence

Margaret and Katharine, two outwardly unremarkable middle-aged lady friends, turn the pilgrimage tradition on its head when they throw themselves into a rousing tour of India, each having her own secret dreams of what the fabled land of exotic and intoxicating opposites will do for the suffering she hides within. Margaret has just discovered a lump in her breast but hasn’t told her friend. The more theatrical and adventurous Katharine seeks a respite from the haunting tragic death of her son Walter. Faced with the women’s despair, who but the goldeb elephant god Ganesha could intervene? Fluid in his power to assume any guise, at peace with all things, Ganesha is the spiritual centre aroudn which the play spins itself, drawing upon the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the deplorable, until a breathtaking release arrives for both women at his hands.