10 years of NAPA through 50 shades of love

Cupid took center stage as NAPA international theatre festival kicked off with ‘Anjam-e-Mohabbat’.

KARACHI:

Students of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) set the ball rolling at the third International Theatre Festival with a tribute play, Anjaam-e-Muhabbat, which commemorated the completion of the institutes 10 years.

The graduating class took scenes from the institutes different stage productions and interconnected them to create a storyline which dealt with the phases one may go through while experiencing love.

The opening scene for the play was an excerpt from a Punjabi translation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream where the female character’s love for the male protagonist sidelined with obsession. Unlike the plays that followed, this play had a lighter sentiment to it and was more jovial in nature.

Scenes from the plays Anarkali and Romeo and Juliet followed and it was not difficult to guess which scene the students were going to replicate from the latter. The popular balcony scene from the Shakespearean play was replicated, where Romeo can be seen professing his love for Juliet.

These were succeeded by a well-choreographed dance performance from the play Shakuntula and a second scene from A Midsummer’s Night Dream.



The scene selected here explored the concept of unrequited love. It shows how Hermia, who has professed her love for Lysander, is offered the chance to marry the suitor of her father’s choice, face death or be prepared for lifelong chastity and worship the goddess Diana as a Nun by Theseus, the Duke of Athens.

Before the start of the opening ceremony, artistic director of the Napa Repertory Theatre Zain Ahmed spoke about giving students complete creative freedom to experiment with the plays as they desired. This facet was well and truly on display when the students combined three separate narratives from Habib Mamoon, Kamla and Kanyadan in a single performance.

According to Ahmed, all three storylines, which employed the technique of freezing, shared a common theme where the male character was forcing himself upon the women either physically or psychologically. This theme was later countered during the performance of A Doll’s House, where the female protagonist, Aisha, questions the position of a woman in both a household and society and whether or not a woman is free to be herself in a society dominated by men.

Despite commendable performances by the students of the graduating class at the start of the play, it was the adaptation of scenes from the Greek tragedy Medea — by Euripides — that stole the show. The selection touched upon the element of betrayal in love. It showed how Medea takes revenge on Jason for leaving her in favour of a Greek princess by killing his wife and Jason’s children.

The International Theatre Festival enters its second day on Thursday with the British production Constellation being the first International play to be staged at the festival. Other plays that are going to be performed at the festival include Indian production Daddy and a collaborative effort between Napa students and German director Brigel Gjoka titled Among Fog, which is going to be a musical.

Ahmed also spoke about how visa issues had become a major obstacle for the organisers, with question marks hanging over the performance of the Indian group.

The festival is being organised in collaboration with I Am Karachi, a civil society-led movement, which aims to inculcate hope, pride and humanity into people. Organisers have announced that they would be conducting a short performance, either musical or theatrical in nature, before each play to celebrate the city of Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  13^th,  2015.

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