Napa Theatre Festival 2014: Going to the dogs

A raw narrative on the woes of the common man in Pakistan .


The idea of using a donkey to represent ‘high command’ is genius. PHOTOS: AYESHA MIR/EXPRESS

KARACHI:


Censorship boards and artists have always been arch rivals. What an artist considers necessary for the audience is often considered unnecessary by the censor board of the time. Pakistani stage and cinema have witnessed their fair share of iron-fisted control, both during Ziaul Haq’s regime, and after.


A few years ago, the film censorship section of the Sindh Secretariat requested the word badbakht to be changed in a Napa play as they found it obscene. Perhaps assuming that he would actually drink alcohol on stage, they even asked for the removal of the character of a drunkard from the play. Yes, this does sound idiosyncratic, but what happened afterwards, both in cinema and stage, was incredible and progressive. The Paresh Rawal film OMG Oh My God! about an agnostic who files a case against God, was allowed to be screened in Pakistani cinemas in 2012. This brings us to the staging of the recent Napa production Kuttay — a play that turned out to be the most direct criticism of the Pakistani establishment on stage or on screen, in recent times.

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The idea of using a donkey to represent ‘high command’ is genius. PHOTOS: AYESHA MIR/EXPRESS



This offers a lesson for artists who rant consistently about censorship issues. When there is a will, there is a way. To put it more aptly; a mid-way of doing things. Whether the audience likes it or not, Mesam Naqvi, the director of the play, will be a happy man after the two-day run of Kuttay, because he has actually said what he wanted to say without sugarcoating the message or wrapping it up in a pretty bow to make it more palatable.

The name of the original Indian play that Kuttay is based on is still unknown, but Naqvi has made some very prominent changes. It is no longer based in a utopian story world, but a Pakistan that we not only all know about, but also don’t talk about.

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The idea of using a donkey to represent ‘high command’ is genius. PHOTOS: AYESHA MIR/EXPRESS



Five soldiers dressed in khaki uniforms have conquered the entire city, and are waiting to take over the last remaining house. The house also hides a woman they are eager to see, but cannot, as the man of the house is not letting them. The man, who is a clear representation of the common man of today, can’t resist much because he and his family haven’t had food for days, and the men in khakis are finally willing to help.

Their help, however, ranges from false promises to a diet full of hope, and a future that will never come until they take control of the common man’s mind, and turn him into a dog called Pintoo.

While that is not the plot, it is the central analogy that has been used to show how the armed forces and the collective that we call the ‘establishment’ have been preying on the common man’s needs and wants.

Interestingly enough, the men in khakis are not as rock solid as they are portrayed to be and have their share of fragility. The most direct indication of this is their subservient manner of responding to the orders of the ‘High Command’. ‘High Command’ is ironically being played by a suited donkey, upon whose arrival all the commandos start shaking out of terror, and blindly follow the donkey’s orders.

A challenging parallel is drawn between how the likes of Bhagat Singh, Habib Jalib, GM Syed and Bacha Khan were sacrificed, and generations of army men have survived and will keep on surviving. The characters take these names, and talk of South Africa and Saudi Arabia as escape routes in case all else fails, or the muzakarat (talks) fail to resolve the problem. Naqvi, with the help of very talented actors, and a dynamic use of stage and lights, succeeds in slapping the audience with a reality check that he believes is the long suppressed narrative of Pakistan.

Having said that, the preachy conversation at the end of the play between the common man and a planted audience member, didn’t work out at all. It rather killed the impact the audience would have walked out with it had the play just ended where the story ended. Unfortunately, it ended up becoming a case of needless experimentation gone wrong.

The Airwolf soundtrack and excerpts from popular songs all make sense in this very tragic story of suppression and thought control. Kudos to Hammad Sartaj, Hammad Khan, Shahjahan , Fraz Saad, Kashif Hussain and Ahmed Mujtaba,  who instead of looking like rookies as a supporting cast, have suddenly come out as potential reservoir of skill and talent for Napa and the theatre industry in general.

Verdict: Naqvi narrates a story that is never told, and tells it in a manner that will not be forgotten. For place where so much has been ruined by dictatorial regimes, Kuttay ruthlessly opens up the wounds of our past and present that have been long camouflaged under the Khaki uniform.

Rating: 4/5

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18th, 2014.

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