In one of the acts, the indignant porter laments the ineptitude and dishonesty of the railways department. PHOTO: MYRA IQBAL/EXPRESS
A tongue-in-cheek glimpse into Pakistan’s calamitous descent as a nation, Anwar Maqsood’s Sawa Chauda August (Quarter-past August 14) drew its curtains to a packed audience at the Pakistan National Council of Arts on Sunday evening. An offshoot of last year’s lauded Pawney Chauda August (Quarter to August 14), Maqsood’s script injected a sense of foreboding through a satire-filled exploration of Pakistan’s political and social landscape in a set that emulated a railway station as an embodiment of the ailing nation.
In a bid to revisit an unruly past and censure the decadent present, the play resurrects the iron-fisted dictator Ziaul Haq (Gohar Rasheed) and the revered political leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (Waseem Waheed) as quarrelling passengers in waiting at a ghostly railway stop, where they are joined by a frail but radiant Quaid-e-Azam (Zahid Ahmed).
In the slapstick humour of the opening scene, the indignant porter, played by director Dawar Mehmood, and the Christian cleaner of the station, David, lament the ineptitude and dishonesty of the railways department, paving way for a more sombre discussion about the treatment of religious minorities and the shortcomings of the nation at large. Moments of seriousness are cleverly infused within a consistently humorous narrative, where characters such as the lewd Sindhi minister and the bearded Pakhtun poet (both roles were taken on by the exceptionally talented Yasir Hussain) and PTI-fixated ‘burger girls’ become subtle elements of critique encompassing everything from the separation of east and west Pakistan to the energy crisis today.
The script resonates with the virtuoso of Maqsood. One can imagine the dialogue pouring from his lips in his quest for a Pakistan closest to the idealism of 1947. The acting is largely flawless except for brief moments of histrionics and tear-jerking musical queues that seem clichéd. The original score however, produced by Abbas Ali Khan is a commendable effort and one that lends poignancy and exclusivity to the play.
“The subtlety with which the dialogues were crafted and jabbed at your flesh when you were not expecting it, was just remarkable,” said Uzma, an audience member who was enthralled, despite having to stand throughout the 90-minute show.
The play will be running till October 30.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 22nd, 2013.
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