Fringe Karachi Repertory, known for exploring new narrative treatments, is organizing a two-day theatrical performance, titled Jaun, which is based on the works of one of the most prominent modern Pakistani poets, popular for his unconventional ways, Jaun Elia.
The event is scheduled to take place at Faraar Gallery, T2F, on 23rd and 24th November at 8 p.m.
The event is not a recital, according to Fringe Karachi Repertory’s official Facebook handle, and in fact, is a theatrical performance with a narrative weaved somewhere between impressionist and abstracted frameworks. “The play has a classical narrative structure and contains characters which have an arc to their transformation based on the three act structure. It is adapted by Zohair Raza who has collaborated with Hammad Khan, Sehrish, Aqeel Ahmed, Najma Kifayat and Adnan Jaffar.”
Usually perceived as a wandering, carefree alcoholic and a distressed genius, Jaun Elia was born into a family of learned men. He was immensely inspired by his father, Allama Syyed Shafiq Hasan Elia, who was a polymath. Jaun refrained from publishing his own works for most of his life mainly because he was trying to give his father’s lifelong love affair with knowledge a closure. He was trying to fulfill a promise he made to his dying father that he would publish multilingual and multi subjective works.
Through this play, Fringe Karachi Repertory has tried to portray the poet in a different light.
“Although a tragic one,” stated the handle, [the repertory] “tries to shy away from the popular poetry of Jaun and find a narrative in some other ones in which we don’t see Jaun, the performer, but Jaun, the introspect. He was an optimist who eventually lost all hope and believed that his talents were wasted.”
– Tickets, priced at Rs.300, are available at T2F.
