For the cast and crew of “Ek Khawab Sa Lagta Hay,” the stage play was an experiment that failed to click with the audience.
The radical idea, of actors lip-syncing to pre-recorded dialogues and acting simultaneously, was destined to disappoint.
Veteran actor Qavi Khan, who played the protagonist’s role, even admitted as much in his remarks after the curtain dropped on the show’s first night at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) on Friday.
“It is sometimes nice to do the kind of work that has shortcomings and mistakes because it is experimental,” Khan said, adding that “the idea is to learn from these mistakes for the future”.
Ek Khawab Sa Lagta Hay was originally written for the radio. The production team, rather unwisely, decided to keep the radio flavour of the play by going for a recorded track instead of live dialogues. The move fell flat because the lip syncing actors either overacted their parts or underperformed the drama.
The plot itself was clichéd and predictable. Saleeqa, played by Javaria Qureshi, a young woman trying to land her first acting role in TV, falls in love with her new-found mentor, an elderly guy named Shafiqur Rehman, played by Khan, who has just moved into the apartment next-door.
Rehman is a former stage actor trying to escape two failed marriages. He also starts developing a fondness for Saleeqa, many years his junior, as he helps her rehearse for auditions.
But a sudden appearance by Rehman’s first wife and the knowledge that Saleeqa’s actor friend Mureed is in love with her puts Rehman in a quandary. He wants to accept Saleeqa’s offer of friendship but is tormented by the thought that his past relationship baggage might hurt her.
The play’s saving grace is a scene where Khan, through his acting and (recorded) dialogue delivery, channels the anguish his character is facing. The dialogues are mostly laborious and bookish, but some philosophical musings by Khan’s character add intellectual depth to the drama.
The play hinges on the decision Rehman makes. Would he accept Saleeqa’s love or leave her broken hearted?
A sub-plot where Mureed’s one-sided love affair with Saleeqa makes him possessive of her when she strikes some big roles on TV fails to add the desired theatrical tension in the play.
Two romantic songs, where Asim Subhani, the actor who played Mureed, goes around the stage acting like he is some famous singer performing in front of a hall packed with crazy fans also undermine the serious nature of the play.
Directed by Waqar Azeem, the play will continue at the PNCA auditorium, with a daily show at 7:30pm, till Sunday.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 23rd, 2013.