Peerzada Salman explores personal reflections in ‘Hamlet Ki Khudkalami’

Journalist and art critic Peerzada Salman is certainly not a Hamlet. Unlike the sad figure described by TS Eliot, Salman is not an artistic failure; his successful career and reputation as an excellent journalist suggest that his life is far from the tragic and pitiful existence of the Danish prince.

Therefore, it was both intriguing and somewhat shocking to see Salman draw parallels between Hamlet and his own life in the stage production ‘Hamlet Ki Khudkalami’, which was performed at the Arts Council of Pakistan on Monday as part of the ongoing World Culture Festival.

The production, written and directed by Salman, featured two characters: the journalist himself, who served as the narrator, and Hamlet, impressively portrayed by young actor Zohair Zubair.

The actor delivered all seven of Hamlet’s soliloquies in Urdu, each preceded by a brief narration from Salman, who informed the audience about the context of each soliloquy within the play, as well as moments in his own life when he experienced feelings similar to those expressed by Hamlet or when people around him reflected the ideas conveyed in the soliloquies.

Some connections between the narrator’s life and Hamlet’s soliloquies were successfully established, while others felt somewhat forced. It also appeared that Salman was describing the seven stages of his life, not through the poem from ‘As You Like It’, but through Hamlet’s monologues.

However, rather than starting with his birth or infancy, Salman began his narrative at the point when he enrolled in an English literature degree programme, where he studied ‘Hamlet’ in his very first semester.

At this stage, the narrator may have viewed himself as a blank slate, surprised by the appearance of the ghost, much like Hamlet. The first soliloquy captures that shock, as Hamlet struggles to believe that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius, with his mother Gertrude complicit in the crime.

Salman interpreted the second soliloquy as a reflection of the inability to suppress painful thoughts. He noted that just as Hamlet cannot suppress the distressing thought of his mother’s involvement in his father’s murder, he too cannot suppress a painful memory of the death of a friend. He recalled the lawlessness of Karachi in the 1990s, when one of his friends was shot in the neck as collateral damage during an attempt on another friend, a policeman. The policeman survived, but the other friend became paralysed, and died after a year and a half.

The third soliloquy in ‘Hamlet’ addresses the art of acting, as the Danish prince contemplates staging a play to expose his uncle’s crime. Salman mentioned that he once aspired to be an actor, but unfortunately, there were no drama academies in the city at that time.

Perhaps the most compelling part of the production came before the famous“to be or not to be” soliloquy, when Salman confessed to grappling with suicidal thoughts in his late 20s. Fortunately, he fell in love at that critical juncture, which helped him overcome those thoughts.

The comparisons he drew with the last three soliloquies were more focused on society than on the individual narrator. For instance, in the sixth soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates how he would confront his mother and the words he would choose. In this context, Salman spoke about the declining standards of language in our society. Overall, it was an engaging production.