All the world’s an ‘Investigation Cell’

With the scope of theatre expanding, more playwrights can be seen producing original plays in the city of late. However, staged at The Second Floor, the play ‘Investigation Cell’ went a step further and used psychoanalysis to get the play’s point across.

Albeit a self-explanatory title, the play - written and directed by Kulsoom Aftab - revolves around an interrogation officer, three suspects and their alter egos.

While no names were assigned to the suspects, one of them refers to himself as Barack Obama (Vajdaan Shah) which becomes his crime, for he is impersonating a former US President.

The other two detainees are burqa clad women (Asia Alam) who refuses to show her face, while the other is a vivacious woman (Kulsoom) who is later revealed to be a writer.

The play opens up with the officer (Faraz Ali) grilling the man charged with impersonation, except the suspect is adamant that he is what he claims to be.

The scene is followed by the burqa clad woman being forced to reveal her face by the officer who has no qualms about using crude language with her. The woman claims to be a servant of God and strongly believes in enforcing the Shariah globally, perhaps alluding to the religious fanaticism in our society.

As the woman goes off stage, the vacant seat is taken by the writer who remains composed despite the officer’s deafening voice. She engages him in a conversation and the officer although pretending to be interested, calls their alter egos to speak for them.

The man’s alter ego appears to be a young lad (Mujtuba Rizvi) who is dressed in fancy clothes and identifies himself as Othello and Hamlet. The burqa clad woman’s alter ego turns out to be another person wearing a burqa but turns out to be a timid man (Muntazir Mehdi), while the writer’s other self is a child (Sabiha Zia) clutching onto a doll.

Although the three immediately distance themselves from their personalities and refuse to accept them, the officer gives them some time to either plead guilty and walk free or face a trial.

As they wait, the three hear painful, fear inciting screams and decide to nominate the writer to strike a deal for them with the officer. The officer appears later and forces the woman to accept that she wants to be a man and makes her feel guilty for her choice.

He soon offers her a solution and does not feel worried when she says that she would like to be a man so she too can wage jihad.

On the man’s turn, the young lad is introduced as someone from Lyari who has grown up amidst violence. With the lad shaking up ‘Obama’ to accept him, the latter suddenly gets hold of the guard and snatches his gun, signaling that he too accepts his alter ago.

Instead of recognising the resilience shown by the alter-ego, the officer feels as if he has achieved yet another goal. He reminds him that the problem was not to find the root cause of the violence rather it was the mere acknowledgement of the violence itself.

It is later told that the man serves as a headmaster at a school and his attempts to let go of his past are futile.

The third and final detainee, the writer too struggles to keep her childhood self away and it is told that she was abused by a salesperson.

The officer, however, tries to make her feel guilty insisting that she was a pervert who wanted to get abused. The writer momentarily gives in to him, only to snap back again and assert that he can’t make her feel guilty for a crime she never committed. But no investigations or trial follows rather the play ends with the final word of the officer.

The play doesn’t only talk about the socio-political scenarios in the country with references to Afia Siddiqui, turmoil in Lyari or the role of USA post 9/11 — it rather tries to reflect the structure of a society, where it’s extremely easy to label someone and name and shame them.

Sharing the play’s details, Kulsoom, who also played the writer, said she felt the world to be an investigation cell; because that’s what people do, investigate others.

Speaking about her own role, she said the reason why the writer suffered the most at the end alluded to the society’s response towards writers in general as to how they are forced to feel guilty without any cause.

Commenting on the growth of theatre, she said it was high time people staged original plays because performing foreign plays would not help the theatre grow: “I feel that we need to enlarge the society’s comfort zone instead of the other way around. If we won’t offer a different subject matter to the audience, we can’t expect them to change their ways either.”