KDS ANNUAL PLAY 2013- A Tale Of Two Tales

(With Special Thanks To Nida Rauf and Mehroo Bakhtawar for being so wonderful and for having life-saving Photoshop skills. And to Tayebah Mumtaz Hashmi and Neehal Wali for being generous with their time)
Photo Credits: Ibrahim Raza, Bilal Mazhar

   So riddle me this: Who’s skinny and just a leeettle messy-haired and wears glasses and is a wizard?

   No, it isn’t Harry Potter.

   And don’t act smart, it’s not Danny Radcliffe either!

   There’s no need to look afar boys and girls, because we’re talking about someone much closer to home. We’re talking about the man behind the magic of this year’s AWH-wait for it-SOME annual play! The wizard was ofcourse our very own KDS Secretary, Neehal-the whiz-Wali.

 

 As always, Team KDS treated us to a star-studded duo of short and long plays. Here’s the nitty gritty:

Short Play (Mein Kia Likhun? By Hammad Shafi)

Long play (Aangan Terha By Neehal Wali)

Directed by: Neehal Wali

Produced by: Abdullah Sohail (of the Dulha Bhai fame)

Like it does every year, the short play featured dead-serious actors, hell-bent on imparting a moral lesson to the toofan-e-badtameezi (read: the colourful-est jugatbaazi) that KE’s audience is. The play, inspired from literary legend Ashfaque Ahmad’s works, had a very creative and zara-hatt-kay plot, featuring a story within a story in which a radical writer/director (Hammad S.) hopes to win a slot in Seth Jhara’s(Hassan M.) theatre by showing him his emotionally charged, three-sequence stage-play. The sequences, which reflect our society’s deep-rooted callousness, consist by turns of the struggling wife(Zahra) and child(Taha) of a hafim junkie(S.A.Raza), Afia Siddique(Shabab) being tortured in an interrogation cell, and finally a street-criminal(Talha) putting a bullet through a man(Hassan) who’s just borrowed a bank loan for getting his sick mother treated. As expected the Seth, whose theatre runs on sleaze, gives the play a huge thumbs-down since, in his own words, “Log yahan hansney khailney aatay hain. Yeh maslay, yeh rona dhona sunney nahi”

Face Off:
The Writer, The Seth and The Dimple

   While Mein Kia Likhun was a superbly acted-out piece, a huge blow to the power-packed performances was ofcourse the @!%*#$ microphones that failed to work at all the wrong times in the play. I would have missed more than half the script, had it not been for Zahra’s and Syeda Shabab’s wonderful stage- voices that carried the high-pitched, raw emotion of their lines perfectly. Bravo, girls!

Hammad Shafi, the perfect prototype of a tormented, brooding writer had a terrific stage presence and a powerful voice but there were times I just found myself wishing he’d walk around more, use up the space on the stage and not deliver his lines motionless. Nevertheless, Hammad Shafi and his final monologue for the win!

تجهے دیکھ دیکھ او نوجواں! دل خوں کے آنسورو رہا ہے.... مئے مجاز پیئے خدا کا نائب،صنم کدے میں سو رہا ہے....شب قدر جاگ کر بهی صاحب قدر نہ ہو ا....صلیب پہ لٹک گیا ہلال،تیری خطا وں سے بدر نہ ہوا

 

   Qudratullah who looked dazzling on stage as Afia’s American captor and Hassan Mahmood Lak (Seth Jhara) with the very strategically placed dimple, both looked like they were born for their roles and remain by far, my favorite short-play actors.

Intense much?

Mein Kia Likhun, In a Nutshell: One of the most powerful short-play scripts KDS has produced in recent years. Hammad and Qudratullah, I hope your pens never run dry!

Unlike the last 4 years when la-parwaah doctors and be-inteha psychos seemed to be in fashion, the 2013 KDS long play was thankfully not about either and based its story on a domestic tug-of-war between a bahu and her in-laws. The bahu, in a bid to escape her domestic responsibilities, fakes a mental disease and what follows is a hilarious roller-coaster ride that involves a meesna sussar, a neem hakeem, a jaali peer and a truckload of crack-a-lackin jugat and smart-mouthed one-liners, which have been a registered trademark of KDS over the years, and which we all love to bits!

   Some of the finest actors graced the stage for the long play this year and it would be a crime not to have a round of honourable mentions for them here.

Haris B. as Chaudhry Sahib:

"Aik Rafeeq e Hayat Darkaar Hai, Jiskey Bina ZIndagi Bekaar Hai!"

With a booming voice that needed no mic, a spot-on timing with dialogue-delivery and an excellent comfort-level with the stage-space provided, the guy had the play in his hand right from the start. And he had a moustache to kill as well! O mein kya payan, tussi te baray e mazaaqya o!

Fizza M. as Bahu:

"Nahi, itna kaam tou nai karwatin, par saas pasand kisey hoti hai?"

Grrr...In-laws Should Be Outlawed!

So here’s the deal: IK may be the only politician whose face looks good on a T-shirt, but our Fizza is the only, but like, the ONLY person alive who doesn’t just look good on and off-stage but actually manages to look stunning while throwing fake-epileptic fits! An adorable gem of an actress, the girl sure knows how to make her presence noticed.

Talha as Kaleem the Kamina:

"Wo Mein Keh Rea Tha..."

olways be urself, unless
u cen b a tharak, den olways
b a tharak. Kthanksbye!

You know the “Fraandship me, pliss’ and ‘I got moves like a jaggerrr’ inboxes you sometimes get in your Others folder? Well then you have to have seen Talha in his side-splitting role of a classic street-lafantarr to know what these desperadoes look like. The grease, the sleaze, the cheapness, all copy pasted to perfection! Talha, wo mein ke rea tha k, ap chaa choo gye ho boy!

Humayun Israr as Hakeem Tehseen, Behad Haseen:

"In Your Dreams, Babyyy!"

Okay so this is the *facepalm* moment when I cannot think of anything I can write in this space here that would do justice to the pure, undiluted on-stage awesomeness of Humayun. Except perhaps, that his acting talents and sharp-as-a-bag-of-razor-blades spontaneity make me very proud to have been a co-member of Batch 2008-2013. 

Awais and Fahad as Baba Gangam Shah and Baba Tuch:

(A: Ki naa e tera, oi!

F:Shukuntila

'Nuff said!

A: Aeddi tu Bollywood di churail, asli naa dus!
F: Sughraan)

Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the emperors of jugat! They’re brilliant and they know it. Part-time qasai, part-time peer, Amil Baba with his assistant, Baba Tuch “agar kahin jin nikaalney jyein tou aksar jin ki  jagaa aurat nikal k le jaatay hain”  Mini-Humayuns in the making, these guys are bound to keep Kemcolians (and Usama Talib) entertained next year and the next to next! Shukuntala would have been So proud, y’guys! *tear*

Unsa Athar as Apa!

 (To Choudhry Sb.)"Oye Tu Kia Seerhi Pe Charh K Baat Kar Raha Hai, Himmat Hai Tou Neechay Utar!"

Ayyyyyy! Sooper mein wo khaas baat hai jo...

A gem of a last-minute find by Neehal, this super-talented lady was by and large the star performer of the play, making us all see why it’s absolutely unforgivable to underestimate your juniors at KE, because brilliance often comes in small [huggably cute] packages. Well done, Unsa! Jeeti raho and no, Soooooper nai hai!

  

Fazila G., Fatimatu Zahra, Suneela S. and Khaula T. as 

Guddo, Mother-in-law, Sister-in-law and Sonia:

Carrying off their supporting roles to perfection, this group of ladies brought life and a special bit of their own to the play. Guddo with her “ISH”-ness every time she appeared on stage (#Crowd going wild. Crowd going wild!), mommy-in-law moulding her face into a range of expressions faster than you could say “WTH, saasu ma!”,  nand sahiba with her million dollar smile and “merey Allah burai se bachaana mujh ko ringtones and Sonia adding the necessary “oomph” to a benign saas-bahu play, were all indispensably good.

All in all, a superb team effort! I looked for but found no visible flaws in the sets, the props and the make-up. Kudos to the respective teams!

There were moments in Aangan Terha, like there are in every stage-play, when some scenes seemed pointlessly dragged out and quite unnecessary, but not once did the humour seem forced or out of place. In this respect atleast, this year’s production stands tall and proud in comparison with historic KDS legends like Zindagi k Platform Pe, Khajoor Mein Atka and Mein Pagal Nahi Hun.

Aangan Terha, In a Nutshell: Brilliant cast. Excellent direction. The richest, cheesiest, LOLZ (Humayun-style) brand of humour ever. If you missed this year’s long play, you missed a heck of a lot, my friend!

These are the boys and girls we should be thanking for giving us an evening we're sure to remember for a long time!

And now that we’re done with the review, it would be worthwhile to have a word about the performances as well. Badtameez Dil seemed to have hit a chord with our boys this year with two consecutive performances by Hamza, Bilal and Arafat and then again by Farhan.
Killah moves, boys! While I genuinely enjoyed the dances, I’m thankful to Hamza and Co. from the core of my heart for abandoning the dupattas this year and going for black tie. Tuxedos suit your style more than chunri ever will!

Syed Ahmad Raza, with Taimoor and Rafay was THE show-stealer of the night, setting the stage on fire with his jelly legs and plasticine rest-of-the-body. Raza, I assure you, when the annals of KE are written, your name is So going in there as the man who could wrap an audience’s heart-strings around his dancing shoes. And ofcourse as someone whom Sheldon and his gang time-traveled for to learn their mooooves! 

Aha! So That's Where Raza Gets His Moves!

Well, that’s about it, folks! For news, views and comments, you know where to hit back. Cheerio!