Theatre Exile presents Rajiv Joseph's 'Guards at the Taj'

However, this two-man play by Rajiv Joseph (who also wrote Theatre Exile's dark relationship drama Gruesome Playground Injuries, produced in 2011) is, more than those plays, also a beautifully subtle exploration of beauty, courage, and dreams.

History from the common man's view

Anthony Mustafa Adair plays Humayun, a lowly guard posted outside the Taj Mahal, the palace commissioned by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife, who died in 1631. Seventeen years later, in "another city" where 20,000 workers toil in secret, "the most beautiful thing that has ever been built" is about to be revealed. Our heroes see the irony in facing away from it at their posts.

Humayun takes his job very seriously, but cousin Babur, played by Jenson Titus Lavallee, would rather chat and dream. In contemporary-sounding conversation, they discuss birds, their jobs (being assigned to the emperor's harem is their goal), the stars ("fires in the sky"), the possibility of flight (predicting airplanes and seatbelts), theoretical physics (anticipating wormholes by a few hundred years), and a memory of simple happiness. Like Hamlet's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they're minor players ruled by great forces they don't understand, and like Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they humorously question their place in this universe.

Director Deborah Block's production makes these hapless guys likeable and relatable. Colin McIlvaine's set in Studio X is small, but provides convincingly massive stone walls serving not only as a barrier to the Taj, but also a dungeon — and which cleverly accommodates some bloody business. It’s lit beautifully by Drew Billiau, and supported by Brad Pouliot's sound design, which treats us to period music, and also makes the space feel vast with echo effects. Together, it all suggests the Taj's mystical presence and the Emperor’s omnipotence.

It gets real

A new assignment plunges these innocents into a crisis of faith. Their task, meant to ensure that nothing ever competes with the Taj's grandeur, horrifies them (and us), while also providing some darkly hilarious moments, a balance required by the script that Exile's superb production maintains. "I don't want the Taj Mahal to be the last beautiful thing ever built," Babur insists, hatching a bold plan. Humayun wavers between his sworn duty and protecting Babur from himself. Their friendship, and much more, is at stake.

Their story skillfully shifts in tone, starting with almost vaudevillian humor and sentimentality for history’s little guys, then transcending shocking brutality to end with magical grace — a wild 90-minute ride, and no small accomplishment. Guards at the Taj, though set centuries ago in a faraway extinct empire, draws us in with a powerful immediacy that deserves to be experienced.