A novel experiment in Shakespearean plays

Karachi
The current series of plays being staged by the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) are a bold experiment by young directors and playwrights in conveying themes that are a profound comment on life, of the love, enmity, ambitions and fears that have a place in the daily life of humans.
Tuesday evening was one such event where an innovation of the young director Hammad Sartaj, a member of the batch of 2012 of Napa, was staged. It was a combination of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello.
The play, titled, “Here lies a noble man”, is a play about ambition and the lengths to which humans would go to
fulfil those ambitions. The play explores the ambitious nature of two of Shakespeare’s characters from two of his plays, Macbeth (from the play by the same name) and Iago (from Othello) and the choices they make to feed their ambitions. It is a profound portrayal of love, hate, infidelity and the like.
The play is teeming in plots and hence very skillfully manoeuvred sword fights. All the members of the cast have executed their roles with dexterity and profoundity.
Sonia Ashraf as Lady Macbeth and Shabana Hassan as
Desdemona have executed their roles most astutely and infused life into their roles. Farhan Alam as Othello has done a dexterous job given the highly complicated nature of the character.
Vajdan Shah as Cassio is another character worth mentioning. He really makes the nature of the character so profound with his powerful acting.
Hammad Sartaj has performed a delicate balancing act in combining two of Shakespeare’s plays about different locales and different characters and fusing them into a play to convey the themes that the bard always advanced with his keen insight into human nature.
Sartaj has diverse skills as actor, director and light designer.
Notable plays that he’s acted in include “Six Characters in search of an author”, Merchant of Venice” and Sau Din Chor Ke”. He has also been involved in the direction of the play, “Ek diary jo kho gayee”. The play was a gripping two hours of entertainment.