Abyss by Sabarna Roy

Abyss is a full length play in two acts with an interval in between. It is essentially a racy crime suspense thriller. Act one builds up slowly to result in a crescendo of conflicts between personalities and ideas finally to end with an unnatural death before the interval. Is it a suicide or a murder? Act two evolves through a series of incisive interrogations to unravel the truth, which is disturbing and affecting. As the play unfolds into a very well crafted situational thriller, underneath is the debate about using land for agriculture or for industry, the ethics of a working author and the nexus of a modern state all wonderfully enmeshed into its storyline and the personal lives of its subtly etched out characters.

At 110 pages, it is a breezy read which can be finished in an hour and provides the instant rush. Since the story is written in a play form, the deliberations and discussions moves at a frenzy pace resulting in interesting one-to-one conversations between the characters. The high points of the play are its central conflict between a mother and her daughter and its female sleuth – Renuka. I particularly enjoyed the flirtations between the mother and the prospective son-in-law who has a hidden agenda behind all those sleazy talks.

The fast pace though gives away the clues to break the mystery a little too early and that is the only, but probably most fatal mistake in a murder mystery. I am going with 2.5/5 for Sabarna Roy’s ‘Abyss‘. Revolving around lust, greed and ethical ways of working, it is a quick fast food meal which you will enjoy but quickly forget about it. Guilty pleasure at its best.

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