KARACHI: The Cogito Productions, an emerging platform of performing arts, launched its website, www.cogito.pk and held ‘The Third Act’ recently at The 2nd Floor (T2F) gallery.
The first play of the act was ‘Tauheen-e-Insaniyat,’ which discussed that the moral values of society were being lost in the country as some elements impose false blames on each other including robbery and even blasphemy.
The play reveals how some people accuse others falsely to take revenge and in majority of cases due to their personal and family disputes. The story of the play revolves around the case of Daniel Khan, who was falsely accused of blasphemy and killed by an actor from the audience later.
Aurangzeb Maqsood played the role of Daniel Khan, Shehzad Shaikh was the writer, director and leading actor of the play, performing the role of defense lawyer in the court story.
Next performance was an English play named ‘Strangers in the NightÂ’. The play was directed by Mariya Dada and written/co-directed by Shaikh. Rehan Ahmed, Umar, Saim Rauf and Rabab Samo gave live music and vocals.
The play discusses women rights in the society particularly regarding the freedom of expression and choice. The story revolves around a couple who could not tie their knot due to such circumstances.
The first scene of the story starts with a situation, in which Samantha, along with her husband Paul, was waiting for the guests, Mr and Mrs Smith. Mr Smith and Samantha fell in love, in past. The leading characters: Rabab Samo and Rahul Rai mesmerised the audiences with their heart touching performance and songs.
Later Shehzad Shaikh said, “Strangers in the Night was our first attempt at an English musical, even though it was set in the United States, the story had much prominence in Pakistan as the main theme of the play was that a woman’s voice is not heard in society”.
The play of the night was a comedy play Zanana Banana, which showed a parallel world where women held a reverse position in the society as compared to the contemporary. The play shows a news programme in which a news anchor Cheema (Aakash Dharma) reads the news and a very fundamentally personality Shibdi Sahiba (Manahil Kapadia) gives her opinions against the liberation of men. The news reports showed scenes from various parts of the world where women were persecuting men. The first scene showed how a boy who was killed by Talibans women in Afghanistan for taking off his burkha, and the second showed how young ‘Allah Ditta’, played by Azfar Sulaiman, belonging to a village in Sindh was teased by a ‘truckwaliÂ’ and then punished for stepping out of the sanctity of the house at night was punished at the ‘Panchayat’. The audience applauded the performances and the idea of the play with several rounds of applauses. Spectators on the occasion, overwhelmingly laughed when ‘truckwali’ started teasing a boy.
On the occasion Cogito team also presented improvisation segments, in which Shaikh and his team performed on the demand of audiences.
Source: Daily Times
Date:7/11/2011
