KARACHI: On Halloween, the audience at The MAD School got a taste of improvised theatre with The Platoon’s presentation of A murder of dreams and other stories on Friday evening.

The 10 actors, spooky as they were, walking in with candles in a dark hall, made up everything while they performed, spontaneously and without preparation. And what was even more laudable about them was that they included their audience throughout the performance, even though it meant chopping them into little pieces and eating them up later! A random member would be called up at the front to speak for 90 seconds about anything suggested by the rest of the audience. The first suggestion happened to be ‘Mustachio’. Suddenly, one realised that the actors were inside a Mario Brothers video game and whatever they did was in the power of whoever was playing them (they had no idea who). There was the princess who had to be saved and a green guy in the way of that and stars to be eaten to gain back life as the audience burst into peals of laughter at the theatrics of the actors making up lines and doing stuff as it came to them.

Next, a lady from the audience was given 90 seconds to speak about ‘dogs’ as suggested to her by the audience. She said she grew up keeping dogs as pets but ultimately her mother had to put her foot down on the matter of pets as she was the one caring for them while the kids spent most of their time doing other things. Thereon, the actors took over. We had a werewolf who didn’t remember what happened to him on full moons and how many servants and farmers he consumed!

Other suggested themes brought up candles with light bulbs on them, synthetic blood that just wasn’t coming out right for Count Dracula, who was otherwise making do with rats, a victim himself pleading to be eaten, starting from his little pinky finger to move up to the vital organs, especially the heart if you really loved him, that is!

And finally, being good at heart after all, the audience, or minions as they were being called, and who were constantly reminded of getting eaten up at the end of all this entertainment were ... actually spared! “We’ll eat you later, maybe,” the actors said before dismissing the idea this time around. Maybe they ate rats instead. Or maybe they got the synthetic blood just right! If not, then Halloween comes around every year. There is always next time. Are you ready to face your fear?

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2015

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