“I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest — without completely realising it. It wasn’t love. Heaven forbid, not glory, not money. It was… I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision.”
What Jean-Paul Sartre’s protagonist calls the ‘precious quality’ is an overwhelming feeling of finding some sort of direction in a seemingly meaningless existence. And what he later explains as ‘nausea’ in the eponymous book is the empty feeling of realising that there isn’t a precious quality to life worth looking forward to. This discovery, despite the persistent yearning for a sense of fulfilment, makes the experience nauseating.
The group of wandering unnamed ‘characters’ from Fawad Khan’s Chheh Kirdar Aik Musanif Ki Talash Mein (Six Characters in Search of an Author), are suffering from a similar dilemma. That is why they suddenly barge into a theatre rehearsal and beg the director to stage their narrative as their author never completed the story and left them as: six characters in search of an author, originally a play by Luigi Pirandello that was translated in Urdu by Khan himself.
Just like a human being in real life, the characters in the play are seeking justification for their suffering by looking for a writer to grant them a complete story with a beginning, middle and end.
The group of characters, led by the gracefully ageing and powerful Rahat Kazmi, are looking for security in a universe that their writer has left half baked; a universe where their sole purpose was to keep carrying the burden of their experiences with nowhere to offload it, and the only way of finding a dumping ground was to create a fictional alternate – hence, their yearning to stage a play that was never meant to be staged.
This is clearly an existentialist play, but what makes it more interesting is the fact that existentialism is not an undertone – it is right in your face and Khan doesn’t shy away from its blatant depiction.
He makes sure that actors break the fourth wall whenever they can, which not only enhances the experience for viewers, but also makes the conflict between the characters and actors more prominent.
Dynamic use of space has always been the key to Khan’s vision for theatre and he is getting more comfortable with it with every passing play.
Portrayal of women in Pakistani plays has become redundant because directors fail to explore their role beyond the clichés associated with them in our society. The step daughter (Meher Jaafri) in the play is a prostitute, but her display of sultriness is far more than what Pirandello had intended in the original play, and that’s where Khan’s signature take on the feminine comes in.
Whether it is his original play Khwaab tha shayad, or this one, women in his plays, are empowered in an unorthodox fashion: their actions are futile, they are suppressed and devastated, but they don’t exploit their vulnerability to gain sympathy. Instead, they confront and overcome it, the way a man would be expected to. They are aware of their insignificance, which is what catalyses them to become stronger, aggressive and dominant over society and their male counterparts. Khan is certainly inspired by Saadat Hasan Manto.
Meher falls out of place between the charismatic Kazmi and the cool yet compelling Mesam Naqvi (the son). Naqvi remains silent throughout the play only to shock the audience with his brilliance in the end. The fine line between going over the top in acting and being melodramatic was blurred by the female actors in some places, with Muzaina (the mother) easing into the melodramatic zone, and Jaafri oscillating back and forth. Sometimes, the latter sounded loud rather than assertive.
All in all, Chheh Kirdar Aik Musanif Ki Talash Mein is a minimalistic, but powerful performance that does stretch a bit in the middle only to recover quickly for a timely climax. The entire concept of the play might seem absurd to begin with, but as the narrative builds up, one realises that it is a reflection of the banalities of the human condition.
After all, like all the six characters, we are in search of an author or a purpose, and until we find our Holy Grail, we either take refuge in nostalgia or hope for a more fruitful future. But what about the present?
Verdict
It’s fast, poignant and above all dynamic; a breath of fresh air for theatre in Pakistan. Watch it for Rahat Kazmi’s effortless performance and a witty commentary on theatrical nuances and philosophical yearnings.
Rating: 3.5/5
Chheh Kirdar Aik Musanif Ki Talash Mein runs from 23 January to 9 February, 2014, every Thursday – Sunday.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2014.
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