Of charms, folklores and Kashmir

The actors in The Charmed Ring did not have any dialogues to play with but still managed to captivate their audience solely on the basis of their hand movements and facial expressions.

CentreStage

Incorporating magic, puppetry and music, director Kashif Hussain’s play, The Charmed Ring, was a treat to watch. 

Karachi

The NAPA International Theatre & Music Festival 2016 may have come to a close but it gave Karachiites enough of a treat to savour until its next edition. While this year’s festival was cut short and did not include any high profile celebrities from across the border, the diverse set of performances and enthralling musical collaborations were a testament to the talent that NAPA hosts, time and again. One such memorable piece of performance art came from NAPA graduate Kashif Hussain, who has trained in movement at the University of Texas at Austin.

Hussain used his skills to bring a world of fantasy and magic alive on stage in his directorial venture The Charmed Ring, adapted from a Kashmiri folk tale, along with an equally fascinating backdrop and effects to complement the performance. Hussain collaborated on the play with his mentor/teacher Laquetta Carpenter, who had come to be part of the festival all the way from Austin. 

“My teacher, who taught me movement at University of Texas, is here and together we selected this folk tale from Kashmir called The Charmed Ring. We adapted this it into a play and the story is told by a narrator, Qadir, who is a barber in Srinagar.” Kashif said. “It took us two weeks to get the whole play together - from selecting the play and making the puppets to rehearsing.”

Actor Fawad Khan, also the lead for Khoya Hua Aadmi, played Qadir and a host of other characters breezing through the many layers of their personality and proving once again that he is a multi-talented actor. He sewed the plot together with his comic timing and was hence, lauded by the audience every time he appeared on the stage.

The duo of the smelly cat and puppy  was the highlight. Erum Bashir who played ‘the smelly cat’ superbly translated the arrogance, grace, and shrewdness of the feline through her body movements, meowing and hand gestures, leaving stray puppy (played by Sunil) to play along as the younger animal, following a much more intelligent one.

Sonia Ashraf as the evil ogress Zulmat was brilliant and captivating. The scene where she is conjuring spirits added an interesting flavour to the play and her movements and the way she chanted the spells sent shivers down one’s spine. Sonia, though evil, was elegant in her depiction of the character making Zulmat stand out in her hooded cape. When caught off stage, Sonia was not as intimidating as she seemed on it. In fact she was quite approachable. Regarding the play, Sonia said, “We had a lot of fun performing this play...there were a lot of things to adapt to because of the use of magic but it was a lot fun since we got to experiment.”

Zulmat was incomplete without her playful but obedient bat – Masood ur Rehman. Masood was also part of the gang of rats that was singing ‘Banka shehzada aaya ray’ when the cat pounced and took the groom hostage forcing them to help get the ring back from the ogress. Hands down, the gang was one of the most popular group of characters in the play.  

The uniqueness of the play lied in the fact that it had no dialogues and yet it had the audience glued to their seats and part of the credit goes to the command with which the actors executed their roles. Hussain acknowledged that and appreciated his team of actors for pulling this off in mere two weeks.

“We had read a lot of stories and selected this one since it had a lot of action. The biggest reason to select this story was that not many have heard about it so no one would mind if we tweaked the story to make it more interesting,” he said. “The actors have been working really hard. Many of my seniors like Fawad, Josh, Sunil and also Erum have put in a lot of hard work and this is why the play has come out so well. I just had to tell them what the character is and they would instantly get into the skin of it.”

 Kashif also thanked his teacher for coming all the way and was happy that her perception of Pakistan changed after her visit. “She was very happy not just with the play but also over how her perception changed after meeting all of us. Any doubts that she may have had about theatre and actors in Pakistan were erased. She was amazed at our eagerness to get the task done. For example, she thought it would be difficult for us to do puppetry but she was pleasantly surprised to see that we got the work done in no time,” he concluded.

– Photography by Shahzaib Ali