Improvisation theatre entertains audience at ACP festival

It was not with great expectations this scribe entered a studio of the Arts Council on Saturday afternoon to witness an improvisation theatre titled ‘Koi Tayyari Nahin’ produced by Muneeb ur Rehman for the Pakistan Theatre Festival 2023 that is taking place at the Arts Council of Pakistan (ACP).

As the title suggested, the entire performance had to be improvised then and there after taking cues from the audience. There was no pre-written script that had been thoroughly rehearsed.

Rehman, who has been practising theatre for over a decade, has championed the art of improvised theatre. He leads two troupes titled ‘Fikre Fukre’ and ‘Na Maloom Afrood’, both of which participated in ‘Koi Tayyari Nahin’. He also holds sessions of improvisation theatre at the ACP on a weekly basis.

However, for someone who had not seen any such performance before, the best idea was to go there with a blank mind and no expectation.

As the show began, Rehman came on the stage and asked the audience to say one word that came to their mind when they came to attend ‘Koi Tayyari Nahin’. As various suggestions poured in, he selected the word ‘Anjaan’ (someone or something not known) and passed it on to two actors, Hassan Alam and Zubi Fatima, to weave a drama on the theme of something hidden.

The two performers, like the rest who followed them, performed very well. Alam began the scene asking Zubi whether it had come to her knowledge what had befallen him. She replies in the positive and their conversation continues without actually disclosing what had happened to Alam, keeping the audience ‘Anjaan’.

As the actors continued to invent dialogues, Alam came out to be a film director who currently had no work and Zubi was his affluent friend willing to sponsor his future projects.

It appeared that a tragedy was to be unfurled, but after the scene ended, it was revealed that the show was not a linear performance but a collection of disjointed scenes.

The two actors who came for the next scene were Ali Raza and Ajnesh Dodeja and the audience was again asked to say one word expressing what they felt after seeing the actors. The word chosen this time was ‘Garbar’.

This scene was comic as Dodeja acted as an intoxicated man or someone having hallucinations. Raza initially appeared to be a concerned friend trying to console him. However, as the conversation continued, Raza turned out to be a ghost of someone whom Dodeja had killed during rash driving.

The entire show became a slapstick comedy after that as the scenes that followed were based on themes such as an aged grandfather wanting to marry again, a daughter hiding her lover in her room from her father, etc. The audience went into chuckles every now and then.

The other actors who performed were Armughan Khatri, Dilbod Rahim Baloch, Fatima Adil, Muhammad Asim and Asif Shehzad. The entire cast did a praiseworthy job. However, one thing that could have been avoided was too much delving into themes that some conservative people in the audience might have found indecent like showing an extramarital affair, or a son born out of wedlock asking his father who his mother was or a woman accusing a hostel student of making her pregnant. The best part of the show was when a member from the audience was called on the stage to share what he had done since the morning. A youth volunteered for that and came on the stage to tell that he had to rise early in the morning because he had to take a language exam. He added that he had no plans to attend the show and had come to the APC to get tickets for another show where he eventually decided to watch ‘Koi Tayyari Nahin’. He also informed the audience that on his way to the ACP, he was caught by a traffic policeman who imposed a Rs500 fine on him.

After the audience member had described his day, the actors enacted his story in a funny way from his mother awakening him in the morning to his teacher scolding him during the test and later a policeman stopping him. This segment was received with a thorough applause.

Later, talking to The News, Rehman said such a show could also become a performance of tragedy, but it was rare because doing comedy instantly garnered the audience’s response through laughter, which encouraged the actors to continue improvisation in the genre of comedy.

‘Koi Tayyari Nahin’ will be staged again during the theatre festival on October 1. After seeing the first production, it is safe to advise people to go to the second show with great expectations.

Meanwhile, an American physical theatre group Uplift staged ‘Through the Waves’, which showed the story of three women through music and silent acting. The case included Hannah Gaff, Juliana Frick and Nicholette Routhier. The performance will again be staged tomorrow (Monday) at 8pm.