Taking to the stage

SnR comes as the first theatre troupe from Arts Council Theatre Academy in collaboration with Napa students.

KARACHI:

Theatre in Karachi has developed a great deal since the inception of National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) and now to be joined by the Arts Council Theatre Academy (Acta). Formed in 2009, Acta has launched its first theatre troupe in the form of SnR (Shakeel and Rehan) Productions, set to make it to the mainstream theatre scene in the city.

SnR comes as a collaboration of graduates and students from Acta and Napa. The team comprises Mohammad Rehan Khan, Shakeel Hussain, Kamal Hussain, Ahsan Raza, Shahbaz Khan, Asif Khan, Saleem Akhter, Munazza Fatima, Anoushca Malik and Muzaina Malik. The group received the Governor’s Trophy and won the theatre competition at the annual Youth Festival in 2010 for their Urdu version of Russian writer Anton Chekhov’s The Boor.

For their recent performance on the Urdu version of The Broken Jug – originally written by the German writer Heinrich Von Kleist – the artists received a great response from the audience at NED University, Karachi.

“We all had our side businesses when we joined Acta. I had a mobile phone sales shop and my fellow actor Kamal had a motorbike spare parts business, but it was our love for theatre that we left everything else and focused on the art,” said Shakeel Hussain, one of the founders of SnR Productions and coordinator of Acta.

It was during their studies that the key members started performing as their teachers encouraged them to perform in a play after six months of studying.

“Our faculty members were our biggest support as we performed plays like Juloos, an Indian play by Badal Sarkar, and an Urdu adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Chameleon. After that, we decided to go solo and properly registered our theatre company,” Hussain told The Express Tribune.

Though the graduates have made a theatre troupe, they feel there is still very little support from the government. “We tried to approach the youth ministry a couple of times, but there was no response. But then the Arts Council always helps us for the venue and places like the Goethe Institut and Alliance Francaise are good alternative platforms as they support cultural activities like theatre plays,” said Hussain.

However, the artists believe that doing a number of plays regularly is the only way to create an audience for their group.

“We believe in low budget theatre and so we improvise on factors like set design and ask the actors to bring clothes from home. As a result, if we get any financial return, at the end of the day it goes in our pockets,” he said, adding that the troupe has performed without a set and people never really felt the difference. Hence, SnR focuses more on content.

With rehearsals going on for their ongoing play The Broken Jug, SnR Productions plans to take the play at the Arts Council along with other venues before they start off with something new.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th,  2011.