Khel Jari Hai: Comedy of errors

“Khel Jari Hai” is a side-splitting story of a community theatre crew that is attempting to stage a high-brow play.

With Karachi in the grip of violence and political uncertainty, live entertainment has come to a virtual standstill. The Napa Repertory Theatre, however, filled the void by staging a comic play. Titled, “Khel Jari Hai”, the play is an Urdu adaptation by Babar Jamal of “Play On” by Rick. The legendary actor and art director of Napa, Rahat Kazmi, directed this theatrical venture. “I am asked time and again why we don’t produce comic plays. So this venture will definitely take care of this complaint and fulfill our long-cherished desire for light entertainment,” said Kazmi.

“Khel Jari Hai” is a side-splitting story of a community theatre crew that is attempting to stage a high-brow literary play. The restless and relentless playwright goes on changing the story, characters and dialogues right up to the last minute, making it all but impossible to stage the play. The director of the play Naveed Jaffery (Akbar Islam) has a nightmarish time dealing with the prudery and coquettishness of the female actors and the mischievous behaviour of the male actors. Naveen, a lead character (Bakhtawer Mazher) is ultra-sensitive and gets hurt whenever anybody passes any direct or indirect remarks about her age and bulky frame. Time and again, the rehearsals fall prey to verbal clashes while physical scuffles are avoided only with the timely intervention and the handling of the situation by the director himself.

The director also has to deal with a young cast that is not up to the task of enunciating the flowery Urdu required by the script, resulting in hilarious ambiguities and misunderstandings. The assistants are constantly pestering the director and spoiling the rehearsal with their amateurishness. Somehow, everyone fumbles through and is ready to stage the play.

But this is only the start of their problems. On stage, the cast and crew’s mistakes are magnified. As the play proceeds, the signs of severe panic, embarrassment and helplessness on the faces of the writer and the director, sitting in front of the stage, only add to the hilarity of “Khel Jari Hai”.

There is potential for a fair amount of monotony in “Khel Jari Hai”, largely because of the need to repeat the scenes and dialogue of the play within the play. However, the sterling team behind “Khel Jari Hai”, which inlcuded QM Sayem, Ali Kazmi, Ali Sheikh, Rauf Afridi, Tanveer Abbas, Akbar Islam, Mehwish Siddique, Bakhtawer Mazher, Gul-e-Rana and Afsheen Hayat made the play a feast for the audience. Significantly, this was also the first time that Napa included actors other than students or employees of the academy, including those from television.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2010.