‘Chup’ boldly depicts the plight of families of missing persons

As the fifth edition of Napa International Theatre and Music Festival came to an end, the play ‘Chup’ (Silence) staged at Napa’s basement playhouse has quite proven that the institution’s Playwriting Project will be producing quality theatre in the days to come.

Staged over the weekend, the play written by Napa faculty member Fawad Khan who also plays the lead, doesn’t beat about the bush but boldly addresses the plight of the families of missing persons.

Festival Director, Zain Ahmad, nevertheless gave the audience a heads-up that if the play hurt their sentiments, they needed to understand that it was only a response to what was going on in the society.

Directed by Sunil Shankar, ‘Chup’ saw a packed house on both days as many attendees had to stand throughout the play to watch it.

Opening up with a series of telephone rings, two characters Salman (Fawad Khan) and Rabia (Kaif Ghaznavi) show up on stage. Salman is portrayed as a disgruntled man who is sick of the house he lives in owing to his family’s wait for the return of his younger brother, Saad, picked up three-and-a-half years ago.

As he shares his distress with Rabia, Saad’s wife, he discussed how tired he had got of his parents impulse to jump on any trace that might lead them to their lost son.

Later, Salman starts receiving calls from an unknown number — however whenever he picks up the phone no one speaks at the other end, reminding him of the time his brother was whisked away.

The mother (played by Bakhtawar Mazhar) also gets the same calls, but instead of getting frightened she’s hopeful that her son has been reaching out to her in an attempt to get recovered.

She later speaks to her senile husband (Sunil Shankar) to convince Salman to allow her to go to the Long March being held for all missing persons. She has been advised to speak up about her son’s case after four people were recently recovered.

Her husband who is trying his best to keep the family together gets a tight scolding from Salman who forbids the family from participating, reminding them of an earlier threat when he received a text message implying that the abductors knew about his young daughter Zara.  

It’s also revealed that Saad is an activist who was picked up for voicing dissent regarding the establishment, but Salman who is worried about keeping everyone safe insists that his younger brother should have been a ‘good Samaritan’.

However, all hell breaks loose when Salman receives another warning as he tries to confront his mother regarding her participation in the march. Pretending to caving in to her elder son’s demands, she is later shown hitting herself repeatedly in helplessness as she admits that she participated in the march.

As Salman shouts at his mother for going, the father is meanwhile shown checking on the door thinking someone’s there time and again only to fall to the floor moments later.

Although Saad’s return isn’t shown, towards the end the mother is shown handing over Saad’s wife Rabia divorce papers, allowing her and Salman to move away from the country with Zara, because her younger son’s recovery isn’t imminent.

The highlight about Chup is perhaps its attempt to explore an issue which is usually restricted to protests which seldom make it to newspapers but not the mainstream media.

The characters don’t mince words when they raise fingers rather are bold enough to call out organisations who are believed to be involved in the abductions.

Although the family portrayed in the play is financially stable, the situation is very different in majority of the cases where the missing person belongs to a lower income class. However, the Palywright Project’s effort to discuss the issue is highly laudable.

All four lead actors were on point with their dialogue delivery and execution of the act. One such example is of a scene where Fawad Khan smashes his phone while Sunil Shankar later makes towards the scrambled pieces hinting at the character’s efforts to keep things together.

Bakhtawar Mazhar as the mother is not someone who scurries away when her son thunders rather stands tall with her resolve. While in some scenes, Kaif Ghaznavi comes off as robotic going about daily chores, she’s unfaltering when she calls out her brother-in-law for the intimacy in their relationship.

Speaking about the script, Fawad said it took him around a month to write the play which alludes to the recent issue of missing bloggers and the developments that followed.

“I feel that we need to come up with more original plays, and in these complex times we need performances which have an impact. There’s no need to project the issues in a simplistic manner,” he said.