Napa festival begins with a comedy
Karachi: The festival of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) opened on Thursday evening with a light comedy, “Lao to Qatlnama Mera”, directed by Farhan Alam Siddiqui, at the Napa Auditorium.
The play, a slapstick comedy, is the adaptation of Italian playwright Dario Fo’s “Death of an Anarchist”, which has been adapted to the Pakistani scenario and is a comic yet profound commentary on the anarchy that has gripped our society, our body politic, and our bureaucracy. The play brings to the fore the reforms versus revolution debate. It is a story about the law enforcers and the loopholes in the law that they easily canter in and out of to escape their minor misdemeanours and the major crimes.
The story revolves around three police officials at a police station, a convict who seems to have mastered the versatile art of impersonation, and a young female Press reporter. The actions and antics of these officials seem to border on buffoonery but this involved some very humorous witticisms and sent peels of laughter through the audience
All the cast members seemed to have really mastered the verbal idiosyncrasies of the police officers and Sayyid Hammad Sartaj as Inspector Roshan , with his ample rotund frame and clean shaven head really put life into is role, his slapstick movements alternating with witticisms.
Syeda Maha Ali as newspaper reporter Faiza Khalili, really brought her character alive with her delivery of dialogues radiating perky innocence and youthful determination.
The story which revolves around a bomb blast in a railway train compartment brings to the fore highly convoluted goings on in our political and bureaucratic scenario
The denouement comes with Jaali (Shahjehan Narejo) telling the reporter all about the way politicians, to achieve their vested interests, exploit the police. He tells her how the poor are taken for a ride by the rulers when they demand their rights and talks of manipulated police encounters.
However, perhaps the older and more conservatively inclined audience would have the play a bit too slapstick, lacking maturity and assuming a very non-serious turn which often diminishes the profundity of a theme.
The festival, which runs up until April 9, will feature seven plays and three musical events, besides special programmes for children every Sunday afternoon.
Source: The News
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