A review on Pakistani Drama theatre play, Khawab Tha Shayad (2018). It was performed at NAPA basement.
+ Crew
- Costume Design, Production Design & Directed by Irfan Khan
- Written by Fawad Khan
- Lights by Masood ur Rehman
- Sound Mixing by Sunil Shankar
- Produced by IB Productions
+ Note
Khawab Tha Shayad is directorial debut by Irfan Khan. Raheel Siddiqui and Najma Kifayat played the lovers’ movement while Fawad, Affan and Marium were as Extras.
+ Main Cast
- Yogeshwar Karera as Salman
- Areeba Aqeel Burney as Saba #1
- Irfan Khan as Salman (Young)
- Ifrah Khalid as Saba (Young)
- Naz as Salman’s Mother
- Aamir Naqvi as Salman’s Father
- Sehrish Qadir as Saba #2
+ Plot
A young couple, Salman & Saba fall in love with each other. To fulfill their dreams and have complete freedom, they decide to move in together away from their families. But once having their new home, everything starts falling apart.
+ High Points
i – After such a long time, able to see Irfan Khan perform in a lead role as immature, insecure, young lover Salman. His strong performance had the audience fall in love with him who was new to watch his acting. As for me, he made me very pleased on the growth as a performer. Well done!
ii – The playwright is interestingly written, something to be proud of. Always loved Fawad Khan’s scripts.
iii – Wow! I am … impressed by Ifrah Khalid who played the role of Saba as another immature, hot headed, straight forward lover. With her firm acting skills it possible to see her as the new limelight of the theatre world and TV, film industry. Other Honorable Mentions: Areeba Burney and Yogeshwar Karera.
iv – Irfan’s direction as a first timer for this tragic play was good. It helped to make the scenes more interesting to watch.
v – The humor level was light and reasonable for the play’s content.
+ Low Points
i – I am sure that we can easily skip cheap dance performances which were not only unnecessarily shown but also had a Titanic tune with it.
ii – Type Caste roles are an abomination to our media industry. The places such as NAPA, Arts Council should give chances to their students to perform in a different role, so they be able to learn and see for themselves that they can act in any role given to them brilliantly without making them a type caste performer. This is already happening in our media industry for decades and should be reduced from these schools for the betterment of these future artists.
iii – There was no need of movement performance, I can assure you. It was completely pointless.
iv – The production design was dull, very boring. There were hardly any props given importance to.
v – Really, I have no issue on watching a play based on a simple story. What really counts is its presentation and how well it is directed. However, since the director himself is a newcomer, therefore the overall picture gave an overused plot.
vi – I must say that the team behind this play’s management handled it very poorly. There should be a restricted age requirement on who can attend plays with strong languages, themes it based on. By maintaining a calm, peaceful environment, punctuality, time barrier for the audience to watch the play with ease and in relax mode… rather than half of the attention is subconsciously focused on crying kid whose parents gave no heed to make it quiet or take the kid outside to stop from creating any further disturbance.
vii – With a simple story, we also have a very predictable end. Unlike to a very intriguing story written previously by Fawad Khan, this time we have a very common story to deal with.
+ Overall
Khawab Tha Shayad is an interestingly written playwright along with strong lead performances. But it is also a victim of its own suffering through a series of errors.
Rate: 2.25 out of 5 stars
Mr. Khan's Reviews 