What's On

Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta (NTofP) presents Guards at the Taj, a heartbreakingly funny work from Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Rajiv Joseph (Broadway’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), at Riverside Theatres from 24 February to 5 March, 2022.

Winner of the 2016 Obie Award for Best Play and the 2016 Lucille Lortel Winner for Best Play, Guards at the Taj is an exploration of beauty and power, autocracy and resistance, and conflicting loyalties, where friendships are tested and broken by extreme and brutal circumstances.

Set in India in 1648, Guards at the Taj follows best friends and guards in Hindustani ruler Shah Jahan’s Imperial Army, Humayun and Babur. They bicker, reminisce about jungle escapades, and have the dubious privilege of standing guard over the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan’s epic tribute to his dead wife, the night before it is revealed to the world as the most potent and powerful personification of beauty.

Humayun, sternly loyal second-generation civil servant, is content to follow orders, even when the Emperor, determined that no object more beautiful than the Taj Mahal should ever be built again, has the guards carry out a horrifying task. But sensitive Babur, an imaginative inventor, can only come to terms with the destruction of beauty if he exacts his own powerful vengeance.

Riverside Theatres is a registered COVID Safe venue, please check the website for up-to-date COVID safe practices, ticket information and refund policies.  

For further information on the performances and tickets to all shows, visit: https://riversideparramatta.com.au/NTofP/show/guards-at-the-taj/.