India, June 21 -- Opening the National School of Drama's new collaborative theatre season, Storm brought a powerful Indo-Russian artistic exchange alive on stage

By the time Ostrovsky finally wrapped up The Thunderstorm back in 1859, he had birthed something notoriously tough to pull off-a hard look at the Russian merchant class and the quiet cruelties that kept it running. It has never been a comfortable watch. You might expect a text this old to feel a bit dusty by now, but this bold new adaptation, The Storm, strips away the period baggage to give a historic script a startling, urgent voice.

Keeping an audience captivated for nearly four hours requires rare mastery, and this recent staging achieves exactly that. Born from a unique ar...