It was with great relief and some happiness that one got to know through the media that Alhamra was holding a 10-day theatre festival. The names of the groups that were invited had a familiar ring to them and one hoped that the resumption of normal cultural activities including theatre was on the cusp. Earlier, a Ghazal Festival had been organised at the same venue and was a success in the sense that the audience turned up and seemed to enjoy - raising hopes of things settling down at last.

The festival did take off. The hall was inviting, the familiarity of the auditorium, its stage, its sets and the musty smell, all very beckoning, a recall of the hours and hours that one had spent languishing in the theatre, either listening to music or viewing plays. It was also reassuring that the life one had become accustomed to was returning to the routines one had grown up with.

There was also relief that the worst of the unprecedented curse was over. The inching back to the habit was like going through a lifesaving procedure. It was an end or the beginning of an end to the staying home act, the fear of catching death in the company of others and the terror of avoiding human touch. It was also a reminder that the performing arts were meant to be experienced as a live show and it was actually a lived experience that made those worthwhile. Both music and theatre have been live from the beginning.

The theatre groups, too, were familiar: none older than one’s own life span. These had been formed during one’s interaction with the theatrical experience. Many groups were formed and then re-formed, or just disintegrated or were dormant and then another was born after a disagreement or a dispute. The players were familiar too. Many had lasted that much longer, while others had rejoined along with the fresh blood that guaranteed a longer span and a resilience to stay in the arena. Many who had become big names or were playing significant roles in public life had beginnings in the theatre. Their first public exposure had been through the stage.

However, the fast-spreading variant, Omicron, put a dampener on the hope, the aspiration and the wish to rush back to normalcy. After the first performance, the festival had to be put on hold given the warnings and the restrictions imposed by the authorities. The sanguinity, thus, appeared to have been premature and the life was back to the stay-at-home hours of watching films, music and stage plays digitally. 

However, the fast spreading variant, Omicron, put a dampener on the hope, the aspiration and the wish to rush back to normalcy. After the first performance, the festival had to be put on hold given the warnings and the restrictions imposed by the authorities. The sanguinity, thus, appeared to be premature and it was life back to the stay-at-home hours watching films, music and plays digitally. Fumbling with the gadgetry and the new language that the technological has thrust upon us at an accelerated pace, one was in a state of frozen terror as one approached the gadget to be functional; despite all the instructions and the rehearsal for at some point one was at a loss to know why the screen did not respond to the programme of one’s desire after pressing the right button and mechanically following the instructions.

The opening shot of the festival, the only play to be staged before the festival was postponed abruptly due to the pandemic variant was Prameshwar Singh, based on the famous short story by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Produced for the Mass Foundation by Amir Nawaz the play was about the tragedy unleashed by Partition, the migration of population and the breakdown of an order. Due to its universality it transcended the immediacy of its environment to address issues that have forever haunted humankind. The play had been staged many a time earlier as well for the dilemma surrounding the human condition has stayed relevant all these decades and probably will continue to do so in the decades to come because it is about the stark choices that one has to make in circumstances that are beyond one’s control. These are then negotiated, bringing out the best or the worst in human beings.

The best challenge obviously in the staging of a literary classic is that the dramatised version is not reductionist in any way. As many such texts have been adapted, the interpretation has been laced with a second narrative and has often raised the question about the authenticity to the original. Here the adaptation had been rather too true to the original bringing into the spotlight the limitation of each medium.

The other plays to be staged in the festival were Lappar, Janoon, Dastan Hazrat-i-Insan, Hoar Da Hoar, Maindha Isq Ve Toon, Sawanri, Ye Bhi Koyee Zindagi Hai and Shah Hussain Madho Lal.

The author is a culture critic based in Lahore