A review on Pakistani Psychological Drama theatre play, Equus (2017). It was performed at NAPA.

+ Crew

• Directed, Costumes Design & Set Design by Sunil Shanker
• Written (Adaptation) by Sunil Shanker and Nazar ul Hasan
• Asst. Directed by Zaman and Mazhar
• Sound Mixing by Bhatti sb
• Lighting by Masood ur Rehman

+ Horses Performers

• Owais
• Salman
• Shahrukh
• Zaeem
• Mahesh
• Mustafa
• Mohsin
• Zohair
• Faizan

+ Note
Equus is a play originally written by Peter Shaffer in 1973. He was inspired to write ‘Equus’ when he heard of a crime involving a 17-year-old who blinded six horses in a small town near Suffolk.

There is an English film ‘Equus’ (1977) starring Richard Burton as Martin and Peter Firth as Alan. Shaffer’s play, Equus won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Play and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle that year as well. His screenplay adaptation of the play was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 1977.

I am pleased to see that there was an age restriction to watch this play. Good management. The music is originally composed by Natasha Humera Ejaz.

Previously Sunil Shankar conducted ‘Equus’ play in 2012 while receiving overwhelming success. The praises were such as “An Equestrian Journey” – Dawn News and “Saving the Best for the Last” – Express Tribune.

 
+ Full Cast

1. Nazar ul Hasan as Martin Dysart
2. Ali Hasan Junejo as Alan
3. Saad Zameer Fareedi as Dalton & Frank
4. Meher Jaffri as Hesther
5. Natasha Humera Ejaz as Jill Mason
6. Shama Askari as Dora
7. Asiya Alam as Nurse
8. Kashif Hussain as Nugget

+ Plot
A psychiatrist attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses.

+ High Points
i – Genius level direction by Sunil Shanker. This play could not be pulled off so brilliantly by anyone as he did. Bravo!

ii – The horses performances, standing or posing in a statue fashion for a 3 hour play, the agility and different movements, noises that they made were all spectacularly been done.

iii – Superb handling of Lighting. It helped with the different moods of the play very effective to watch.

iv – Propounding an amazing performance by Ali Hasan Junejo as Alan. This was one of the two difficult characters to be played which Ali proved everyone that he is the one for it. Although most of the cast were new faces for me but I am glad to see that he played the lead part very well indeed.

v – To perform realistically, for Natasha Ejaz the task was like ‘A Walk in the Park’. I was stunned to see such a beautiful, bold performance by her. This is also her first performance that I have watched.

vi – Nazar ul Hasan as Martin Dysart performed very convincingly, really made us believe that he was an actual psychiatrist and not a great artist. Other Honorable Mentions: Saad Zameer Fareedi.

vii – The costumes design, especially of the horses are ‘A’ graded quality.

viii – The music is wonderfully composed, bought the audience closer to the play’s intense scenes.

ix – The designing of the set was well executed for three major scenarios… the psychiatrist’s room, the main deck and the patient’s room.

x – Avoided vulgarity, nudity or obscene acts in terms of sexual and language.

+ Low Points
i –Though Sunil Shanker have been able to pull this off in the most sensational manner yet, I believe that the 3 hours for a drama play is too long for the audience to bear and watch it till the end. Most people may not have the patience to sit it through till the second half regardless how much interesting the play is. For me, it was like watching LOTRS on DVD with an ‘Extended Version’.

ii – The first half was a bit mixture of impressive yet somewhat bore at the same time. It was difficult to concentrate on the play by having explicit conversations regarding the boy’s heath, mental issues and his secrecy love and bizarre religious beliefs involving horses. It may perhaps be possible to reduce at least 20 – 30 minutes of it.

iii – It was hard to tell the difference of the time and date in the play since the getup (most / all the time) remained the same in every scene.

iv – Ali Junejo didn’t really look like 17 yr old but only his performance was.

+ Overall
Equus is not only visually striking and narrative sustaining, but also its story deepens down to the root cause has left the audience highly impressive whereas it is truly a great achievement in the world of theatre.

 
Rate: 4.50 out of 5

A review on an epic Pakistani Political Rom-Drama theatre play, Hua Kuch Yoon (2018). This play was performed at Arts Council Karachi.

+ Crew

• Narration & Directed by Dawar Mahmood
• Written by Sajid Hassan
• Lights by Shakeel Ahmed
• Makeup & Hair Styling by Kamal Uddin Ahmed
• Produced by Kopykat Productions

 
+ Note

Hua Kuch Yoon is a high budget epic play (original). An 84 year story (1919 – 2003) is been told in an almost 2 hours of play. The main and supporting cast consists of total 35 performers while there are total 11 set (changing) designs during the play. There was a professional team of young dancers hired by the production house. The costume designer is Honey Love while Asiya Bibi happens to be the production designer.

The BTS team consists of vast people, such as Syeda Maryam Jalil, Muhammad Umer Khan, Wamiq Naseer, Hatim Parekh, Faizan Ahmed Khan, Syed Raheel Ali, Saim Rauf Mughal, Asad Rehman, Mansoor, Muzzammil Memon, Syeda Ayesha Jalil, Areeba Rizvi, Faisal Akbar, Abeeha Adnan, Muhammad Danish, Mansoor Iqbal, Wajeeha Mukthar, Ali Idress, Daniyal Hassan Syed, Yumna Shakeel, Khurram, Bilal Zaidi, Kabeer Adil Siddiqqui, Faizan Hasan, Omair Mumtaz, Syed Abuzar KKR and many more.

Similarly minor supporting cast consists of Mahgul Mumtaz, Sana Ameen, Sidra Qamar, Mannan, Abid Khan, Infas Khan, Rabeet Raza, Syed Ramish Hasan Bukhari, Asad Muhammad Bashir, Hammad Multani, Sibghatullah Qureshi, QM Shafay, Ghazanfer Khan, Muhammad Younus, Askar Hasnain Zaidi, Iqan Uddin Asmi, Vivek Anand Manglani, Bilal, Muhammad Rayyan, Muhammad Zayam, Adnan, Safer, Rizwan, Sahir Shakeel and many more.

Hua Kuch Yoon was the first play I have watched with so many performers on stage and the multiple times sets been changed. Hua Kuch Yoon has been conducted in major cities all over Pakistan with very positive reviews.

 
+ Main Cast

1. Saad Farrukh Khan as Raja (Young)
2. Fareeha Raza as Indira Gandhi / Ainee (Young)
3. Saad Zameer Fareedi as Nawab Sb / Raja (Older)
4. Marya Saad Fareedi as Ainee (Older)
5. Faraz Ali as Bihari Fruit Wala / Dholpholia Police – Bounty Hunter / Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
6. Taha Humayun as Venkit / Annie’s Friend Zone Lover / Guy at Railway #1 (Rapist)
7. Adil Bangash as Khushwant Singh
8. Mujtaba Rizvi as Fruit Walla

+ Plot
It revolves around Raja & Annie, of how they were orphaned and then later adopted by their foster parents during the time before the partition of India and Pakistan. Their lives of friendship and love is been shown through the passage of the time of 80 years, from birth till death.

+ High Points
i – Dawar Mahmood has shown what a great direction means for a play. His work had made the characters to present themselves even more interesting than they were written. I would look forward for his upcoming plays.

ii – Excellent writing by Sajid Hassan that is in its story telling and screenplay. The interest level most of the times was high in every scene.

iii – Once again, an outstanding performance given by Faraz Ali as Dholpholia; Police – Bounty Hunter. It’s about time that he should be appearing on good budgeted TV and films alike. His acting is so appealing that the spectators’ eyes are glued on stage. He is no ordinary great actor I can assure you but something much more. With a serious note, if he ever to be shared a scene with a fame veteran actor such as Naseeruddin Shah, the audience would refuse to believe that Faraz is a newcomer on the big screen.

iv – The dynamic couple (Saad Fareedi and Marya Saad) bought an interesting chemistry to this play to an emotional, proper ending. Other Honorable Mentions: Fareeha Raza, Adil Bangash, Taha Humayun, Mujtaba Rizvi and Saad Farrukh Khan.

v – Light humor suited well with the serious tensions of this political rom-drama.

vi – Superb quality sets were designed and constructed. Additional relevant props helped to make the scenes more intriguing to look at.

vii – Loved the way how the creativity was thought over and handled. Even the smaller details to the end credits were given importance.

viii – Good voice narration helped the audience to understand the passage of time and important incidents during the play.

ix – Almost the entire team have given solid performances including the supporting cast.

x – The costumes were well designed / managed / suited for the characters.

xi – The lighting was very carefully and efficiently taken care of. Good work!

+ Low Points
i – There is a good reason why we have the stage to do the performances. It’s preferable to act on the main stage, if not then at least be nearby it. However, there were few performances going on within the place where the audience sat in upper and lower rows. It is difficult and uncomfortable to watch the performances off the stage, especially happening behind you.

ii – Since Fareeha Raza was already playing young Ainee’s character, so to choose her to play Indira Gandhi’s character and then sharing the scene with Older Ainee’s character played by Marya Saad seemed … wrong, creating unnecessary confusion. People started saying if Fareeha could have played an older age character then why not she played out Older Ainee’s character as well.

One may say that Saad Fareedi had also played two characters too (Nawab Shah and Older Raja). But Fareeha’s example does not match with Saad’s since his two characters never shared with a scene together (except for child characters of Raja & Ainee).

iii – What’s so funny having toilet humor? It is cheap, childish comedy; better to leave it for retards.

iv – You might miss out several political referred jokes if you are not up to date with our current politics.

+ Overall
Hua Kuch Yoon has almost clean sweep the audience and critics with its mastery writing, direction and strong performances in this epic play.

 
Rate: 4.50 out of 5 stars

A review on Pakistani Rom-Drama theatre play, Heer Ranjha (2016). It was performed at NAPA.

+ Crew

• Directed by Naz
• Sound Designed by Alooha
• Lighting by Ubaid Iqbal

+ Note

Heer Ranjha is originally written by Waris Shah. It is one of several popular tragic romances of Punjab. The others are Mirza Sahiba and Sohni Mahiwal. There are several poetic narrations of the story, the most famous being ‘Heer’ by Waris Shah written in 1766.

This play tells the story of the love of Heer and her lover Ranjha. Some historians say that the story was the original work of Shah, written after he had fallen in love with a girl named Bhag Bhari. Others say that Heer and Ranjha were real personalities who lived under the Lodi dynasty and that Waris Shah later utilized these personalities for his story. Shah states that the story has a deeper meaning, referring to the unrelenting quest that man has towards God.

Since Heer Ranjha’s plot involves a romance opposed by family members and ends, the story is often compared to the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet.

+ Full Cast

1) Marya Saad Fareedi as Heer

2) Saad Zameer Fareedi as Ranjha

3) Samhan Ghazi as Qazi

4) Aamir Naqvi as Sarpanj

5) Muntazir Mehdi as Seida

6) Damyanti Gosai as Sehti

7) Tehreem Shafiq & Fajir Sheikh as Village Girls

8) Akbar Aftab Ladhani as Ravi

9) Saddam Hussain as Qeedu

10) Aisha Iqbal as Ranjha’s Bhabhi

11) Roohi Ahmed as Heer’s Friend

12) Naz as Chaudhrain

13) Abdullah Alnoor as Chaudhry

+ Plot

Heer is an extremely beautiful woman, born into a wealthy family of the Sial (tribe) Jatt in Jhang, with Pakistan setting. Ranjha also a Jat of the Ranjha tribe is the youngest of four brothers and lives in the village of Takht Hazara, by the river Chenab.

Eventually, Ranjha arrives in Heer’s village and falls in love with her. But their families including the village people highly oppose them.

+ High Points

i – Show’s stealer is none other than Saddam Hussain, who performed as Qeedu. It was really a creative way to show him as handicapped. His one recurring quote that he delivered throughout his scenes was amusing to hear.

ii – Samhan Ghazi as Qazi played the supporting role superbly. He played his villainous role very nicely. Other Honorable Mentions: Naz.

iii – The costumes were in bright colors and cultural as the story required it to be.

iv – Tehreem Shafiq & Fajir Sheikh as Village Girls looked glamorous on stage.

v – The set design was sound according to the settings of the play.

+ Low Points

i – What happens when in a romantic play there is no passionate love shown between the two lovers? If this is the case here of ‘Heer Ranjha’ then this flaw would be consider as blunder.

ii – There was immense lack of chemistry between Saad Fareedi and Marya Saad. Nowhere did they look like lovers especially of first sight. What they actually looked like were couple of actors who were told to perform on stage and here are your lines that they need to be delivered in front of the audience.

iii – The love story between Heer & Ranjha was hardly shown to the audience and the play was quickly forward to the next scenes.

iv – There were no proper character development of the main characters including of Heer & Ranjha which would had made an essential emotional link with the audience. Then whatever conflicts would fall on these two lead actors, we as audience would feel their pain of hurting or losing them.

v – The responsibility of the bad performances by most of the cast is of the director as well. Since the director is head of the team then she needed to make sure that the performances least by the two lead stars need to be perfect as their roles were but did not fulfilled the basic requirement.

+ Overall

Though hearty, Naz’s vehicle Heer Ranjha is also weak and tasteless.

Rate: 2.0 out of 5 stars