KARACHI, Feb 15: With only four characters and two stagehands, director-script writer Anwar Jafri presented an impressive two-act play `Gurya Ka Ghar’ based on Henrik Ibsen’s Scandinavian play `A Doll’s House’.

The drama was staged in the Arts Council auditorium on Thursday by Tehrik-i-Niswan in collaboration with the Arts Council.

The theme of the play was lie and duty in the sacred institution of the home and in the position of woman in her gilded cage. Tehmina Murad (performed by Mahvash Faruqi) is the adored wife of Murad (Saife Hasan), a businessman. He is passionately devoted to his wife and children and Tehmina considers herself fortunate to become the wife of such a man. Indeed, she worships her husband, believes in him implicitly, and is sure that if ever her safety should be menaced, Murad, her idol, would perform the miracle.

When her husband loses in business, it is joy for Tehmina to forge her father-in-law's signature on the property document and borrow heavy bank loans. She hides it all from Murad with the help of her cousin Salim (Salim Meraj), who works in the bank and loves her.

Sakina (Sheema Kermani) is a poor woman who had left her family after she is fed up with constantly serving her parents, then her husband, in-laws and children besides working as a maid to support the family. She gets shelter at a private NGO from where Tehmina brings her to the latter’s house.

It unfolds later with the help of Sakina’s experience to Tehmina that what was she doing was everything but to the joy of her husband. Murad exploits her love and emotions to his own interest and even when he learns about Tehmina’s bank loan for his betterment, he uses it to his own benefit.

Finding out is her salvation. It is then that she realizes how much she has been wronged, that she is only a plaything, a doll to Murad. In her disillusionment she says, "You have never loved me. You only thought it amusing to be in love with me."

When Tehmina closes behind her the door of her doll's house, she opens wide the gate of life for woman, and proclaims the revolutionary message that only perfect freedom and communion make a true bond between man and woman.

According to director Anwar Jafri, his effort was an exercise in ‘contemporising’ a classic play, both in content and form without straying away from Ibsen’s ‘naturalism’. He said he opted to present the play in the setting of a ‘rehearsal of a play’.

This 60-minute play would continue to be staged every evening at 8pm till February 19, said an organiser.