NAPA’s take on farce kicks off today

The cast and crew of the play Sau Din Chor Kay share what to expect from their upcoming theater production


Saadia Qamar September 10, 2014

KARACHI:


The latest venture of the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA), Sau Din Chor Kay deals with the way Pakistanis exploit different types of income support programs.


In a press conference held at NAPA Arshad Mahmood, the Director Administration of the institute and Zain Ahmed, the Director NAPA Repertory Theatre (NRT) shared further details of the cast and crew.

Zain Ahmed elaborated on the play stating that Sau Din Chor Kay is a farce based on Michael Cooney’s play Cash on Delivery and deals with acts of coincidence and mistaken identities that culminate in a comedy of errors.

This play has been organized with the assistance of both the current students and alumnus of the institute.

Uzma Sabeen, the director of the play explained why she chose to direct this particular play. “In this play you would see ‘Pakistaniat’- in regards to the income support programs and how they are hijacked and plundered upon by the higher authorities.”

The writer of this play (adaptation) Babar Jamal spoke of his inspirations saying, “When I started out as a writer it was with a comic script in hand. I have written a comedy for Napa after two years and I am also acting in a play after six long years.”



Though the script has been praised for its humor and style of writing Jamal claimed that he does not remember his own lines quite well.

“This was a forced initiative taken under pressure from the journalist community and the general public because we have been blamed for not doing comedy plays.” Said Mahmood

The cast spoke about their experiences during the on-going rehearsals with Farhan Alam stating, “There are a lot of moments to enjoy in this play and it only gets better with time as you start realizing the chain reaction of events. This is a comedy play and has been treated like on.”

Maha Ali , another member of the cast has left it for the audience to decide , “I have tried my level best not to laugh out loud, here’s hoping it doesn’t happen on stage,” she smiled.



Zain Ahmed on the other hand spoke about other productions which are currently in the pipeline and how busy the coming months would be, “there are other productions such as Aik Dairy which is going to be staged in November. Also next year’s International Theatre Festival is due to take place in March 2015. We plan to ask other international troupes to come over to Pakistan and perform.”

When questioned as to whether Napa have kept their promise of performing six plays in an year, he replied, “an actor is a slightly over-ambitious person, in 2013-2014 we managed to bring as many as eight plays to the floors. However for 2014-2015 we hope to plan to stick to our six productions a year plan.”

Sau Din Chor Kay will be staged from 11th of September till the 28th of September 2014 taking place from Thursday to Sunday.

Tickets for the play are priced at Rs800 for adults and Rs400 for students.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2014.

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COMMENTS (1)

Xoya | 9 years ago | Reply

Thank you Saadia for the updates

surely will try to make it

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