Innocent Cheater: Tales of people who cheat

Thespianz Theatre's latest production Innocent Cheater leaves audiences in gales of laughter.

KARACHI: Friday evening unveiled Thespianz Theatre’s play Innocent Cheater at Pak-American Cultural Centre.

The comedy revolves around money-obsessed Changezi (Faisal Malik), who is indebted to his friends. He hires people but never pays their salaries on time. Changezi’s employees Akram (Zahid Khan), a man-servant, and Sahil (Alamgir Khan), look after his business but are tired of their boss’s insensitivity.

Changezi also has a daughter Aania (Rida Ashraf) whom he wants to marry off to a wealthy man. For this, he decides to trap his friend Jutt (M Daniyal) when Aania tells him that she loves Sahil. This upsets Changezi but he agrees to give a nod if Sahil comes up to his expectations. He later forces Sahil to leave Aania and threatens to fire him if he refused to back out.  Feeling trapped, Sahil leaves Aania, who is also liked by the exorcist Jolvi (Faizan Ahmad).

Directed by Faisal Malik, the play was written by Faizan Ahmad and was choreographed by Alamgir Khan.

Overall, the actors performed well. Though some of the performers forgot their lines, they still managed to captivate the audience, filling the hall with laughter.

Faisal Malik, Rida Ashraf and Zahid Khan stood out for their performance while Ahmad enacted the most hilarious character of the play.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Malik said, “This was an interesting play. Money, or lack of it, was the underlying subject of the play. In Pakistan, people borrow and lend money extensively and hence it must be projected.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th,  2011.