‘Koel’: The science of love

Napa’s fourth production does justice to a brilliant script.

KARACHI: Although a woman is a muse and a solution of his creative dilemma, for a physicist, she is a distraction. And when the scientist is a logic-driven perfectionist, the inclination towards a woman comes as a surprise, which “Koel” truly was.

The National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa)’s latest performance in the 10-day Napa Performing Arts Festival, “Koel” mesmerised the audience with its storyline, which told the tale of a focused physicist, Dr Waheed (played by Adnan Jaffar) and his repeated encounters with an aspiring young physicist Zarina (Farheen Zehra), which leads him to emotional confusion and forces him to confide in psychiatrist Dr Ghazala (Nimra Bucha). Kashif Hussain played Dr Waheed’s submissive butler and Kulsoom Aftab (director of the play) essayed the role of Shehla (Zarina’s friend).

When it comes to the name of the play, the bird koel plays a major part in the narrative as the song of the bird haunts Dr Waheed after his encounter with Zarina.

Outstanding performances

Turning out to be the star of the festival is Adnan Jaffer, who after impressing everyone as Sameer in “Art”, manages to enthrall the audience as Waheed. His confused and shaky body language reflected the skepticism and the excitement scientists feel towards knowledge, whereas his uprightness and firmness spoke of his firm belief in science as his chosen philosophy for his own life. Hussain played the silent yet impressive character of the butler, who remained determined to serve Waheed at all costs. Bucha, on the other hand, was the perfect person to play Dr Ghazala and dominated Jaffar in all the scenes; her calm yet motherly tone made her the ideal doctor for a psychologically disturbed scientist. The weakest link of the play was Zehra, who should have worked more on her dialogue delivery.

All hail Dr Enver Sajjad

Dr Enver Sajjad is a true magician and the spell of words in “Koel” speaks a lot about his writing prowess. A play that was written about two decades ago managed to come across as relevant and contemporary to this day. Some of the lines that were exchanged between Dr Waheed and Dr Ghazala were so good that they can stand alone as pieces of literature. Pakistan takes a lot of pride in having legends like him and all of his students at Napa should appreciate the opportunity they have to learn from Sajjad, who teaches scriptwriting at the institute.

Room for improvement

All in all, Aftab did a great job of putting such a complex narrative together and making everything fit like pieces of a puzzle. However, the overall production needs a little bit of tightening and the actors more time to rehearse. The play is short and solid and can be staged again in a much better manner if the director chooses to work on it a bit more.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2012.