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Inteha, written by Nadia Ahmed, is a drama that stars several big names including Javed Sheikh, Atiqa Odho and Sabreen Hisbani. It has been directed by Rao Ayaz Shahzad and produced by Dr Ali Kazmi and Fahad Mustafa. Will the play live up to the hype? Does it promise something different? Let’s see.
The play opens with Anum, played by Zainab Mazhar, getting ready to leave for college. She has two brothers, Naveed, portrayed by Subhan Awan and Junaid Khan starring as Asad. As the play unfolds, the viewer is informed that she is getting engaged to Fahad in a week. Her brother, Naveed’s wife Zainab is her best friend. Zainab and Naveed, though betrothed to each other in a ceremony, are still awaiting rukhsati.
Naveed is portrayed as a workaholic with anger issues. He hardly has time for Zainab. Given that her parents are separated, she is determined to make her marriage a success. She is always harping on about how she wants an ideal companionship, like her mother- and father-in-law, who have been married for over twenty five years.
Atiqa Odho stars as Asma, the doting wife. Javed (Javed Sheikh) is the perfect husband and father. However, in the first episode, Javed receives a text message that leaves him visibly disturbed. The viewers are left wondering as to what the cause of his stress could be. His blood pressure shoots up and his ECG is not normal. These are hints that something is preying on his mind.
He soon suffers a massive heart attack and is hospitalised. He returns home two weeks later. The doctor has advised him to rest and take it easy but he rings up his lawyer and asks him to come over and prepare his will. In the meantime, a family arrives from Lahore. Javed informs Asma that the new arrival is his wife and the two children with her are his children. He reveals that he had married her twenty years ago but kept this a secret.
What ensues can be spotted a mile off. The new family is accommodated in the guest room, but the viewers can already guess what is to follow. As the two families adjust to living in the same house, tensions develop and conflicts abound. The household becomes a battleground and this takes an emotional and mental toll on everybody. Their personal and professional relationships both begin to suffer.
A play that can be safely given a miss if you want to watch something original and thought-provoking.
The direction, screenplay and story are extremely clichéd. Yours truly could see what was coming as soon as Javed received that text message and hints were dropped about what happens when skeletons come out of the closet. The hype about his being the perfect husband and father was bound to end in an anti-climax. It did when it was revealed that he had another family he had kept hidden for decades.
The story is nothing to write home about and quite predictable. Atiqa is the star of the show and carries the play single-handedly on her shoulders, proving yet again what a brilliant and seasoned actress she is. Javed is strictly average. Besides he has done this a million times before so that the role requires no special effort of any kind. The supporting cast, by and large, is adequate apart from a few exceptions.
Anum as Atiqa’s daughter is very pretty but her acting leaves a lot to be desired. It becomes extremely monotonous after a while and her whining tone begins to grate on your nerves. Her fiancé, Fahad, could also do with some acting lessons. Asad, Anum’s younger brother, also needs to work on his diction. An extremely irritating thing is that the dialogues are liberally smattered with English words. This greatly diminishes their impact and most of them fall flat.
This is another run-of the-mill play with a below average script and shoddy screenplay. It has been done a million times before and lacks originality. The story is extremely hackneyed and highly predictable. The viewers can guess what is about to come a mile off.
The dialogues are extremely clichéd and the characters one-dimensional. The palatial sets, the perfectly made up women and the trite characters mouthing stereotypical dialogues have of course been seen before. Apparently the idea is that TV productions require no imagination, originality or creativity. The play can be safely given a miss if you want to watch something original and thought-provoking.
The writer is an educationist. She can be reached at gaiteearahotmail.com