Lahore’s theatre scene these days is a battleground between the decent and the indecent
THEATRE is one of the major form of performing art that entertains masses all over the globe. No doubt after the advent of TV cable, dish and VCR, their popularity has decreased considerably. Still, it has managed to hold its own charm. Theatre is one of the most difficult mediums. The art of drama is closely bound with stage conditions, the skills of actors and the tastes of the audience before whom it is to be staged. It is, therefore, only fair not to waste such an effective medium in aimless, cheap and vulgar comedy but use it purposefully.
Theatre activities of Lahore have undergone a complete change in a couple of decades. Today, it is not the promotion of art that one gets to see, rather the promotion of actors in these plays. These days the success of a play’s success is judged on the basis that how many famous film actors are there. Combine that with the most number of vulgar dances and bet is that you may have a hit on your hands.
One of the worst things about these plays is the script which has no theme and no story. All they contain are cheap jokes that are put there just to ‘entertain’ the people. Drama is an imitation of life, but what type of life it should imitate? Great art arises only when the theme is noble and worthy of artistic treatment, and hence the dramatist must deal with the noble and dignified action. The ignoble and the trivial is, however, often brought in for the purpose of contrast, or for satire and ridicule, as in the case of comedy.
Despite the very fact that an action was taken a few months back by the local government to check the condition of these theatres, nothing worthwhile has yet been done in order to improve the standards of the people.
It is really a good sign that despite the very fact that all the commercial theatres in the Lahore that are trying their level best to promote theatre based on commercialism, or call it vulgarism; a lot of educational institutions of Lahore are trying hard to promote amateur theatre in the best possible form. Here we find that these institutions have a tradition of producing an amateur theatre, devoid of all vulgarism.
On the same side many new clubs and societies from different educational institutions, that have started up new are trying to promote amateur theatre. An analysis of amateur theatre work being done by a number of institutions will tell us about their achievements and justice that has been done by them in giving uplift to Lahore’s amateur theatre activities.
The best thing about this theatre is that mostly families and students come to watch the plays. Hence they cannot be reckoned to be running behind commercialism. Maybe the reason is that these educational institutions have no problem in staging whatever serious or comedy devoid of the demands of people. The most recent development in these theatres are the English plays, something that the commercial theatre vendors don’t do. Therefore we cannot say that these plays are not a success. In fact it is a big contribution towards amateur theatre.
They say excess of everything is bad. The same is true for amateur theatre where a few years back there was so much of it that anyone, with free time and a sponsor was staging a play. In most of these plays, the scripts were blindly taken from different English movies and novels while no credit was being given to the one concerned. But at last a time came when audience started losing interest in those plays and hence these plays are no longer in sight.
If we look closer at the educational institutions two institutions mainly come handy in making a large contribution towards amateur theatre. Government College Dramatics Club and Najamuddin Dramatics Society of Kinnaird College.
Most of the amateur theatre scene of Lahore is highly taken care of by these institutions which are no doubt doing a marvellous job in producing plays in the process doing their best to promote theatre activities in the city.
Government College Dramatics Club or GCDS needs no introduction. It has long been here and been pioneered by Imtiaz Ali Tag. It has over the years produced many versatile actors like Navid Shehzad, Shoaib Hashmi, Khalid Abbas Dar and many more, who are still engaged in promoting healthy activities in the city as far as theatre and drama is concerned. They are constantly guiding and making the young streams of performers make amateur theatre productive in a more useful manner. GCDC has concentrated mostly on promoting Urdu theatre and that is the very reason that if we look at its history we will find that a lot of emphasis has been given at the Urdu plays. No doubt a lot of English plays were also staged in this period, but a lot of emphasis was on Urdu plays.
A lot of plays have made a mark in the history of GCDC; there are plays like Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The man who came to dinner, You cannot take it with you, Tartuffe, All my sons, The Liar, Taleem-e-Balaghan, Ghar Aaya Mehman and Aaj akhan Waris Shah Noon all have remained best plays in the history of GCDC. Besides that the contribution of the literary club of Government College can’t be neglected. In just a few years it has made its mark with mature productions. Starting up with Julius Ceaser, they have performed Merchant of Venice and The dark lady of sonnets, all classic plays of their times.
But Government College isn’t the only one. Kinnaird College too doesn’t lag behind when it comes to staging a play. In its history of more than six years, it has mainly promoted English plays such as A Midsummer Night Dream, As You Like It, The Tempest, Merchant Of Venice, I Have Five Daughters, Arms And The Man, Insect Play, The Chinese London, My Fair Lady, Black Rain Talks and many more like that.
In all these years, Kinnaird has promoted English theatre. Thus, amateur theatre is being promoted seriously by these handful of colleges. Other than these there is always LUMS and UET. Both have made a place for them selves in quite sometime.
Amateur theatre has been heavily indebted to these few institutions that are really taking it seriously and are producing a number of aspiring youngsters, who themselves are coming forward and taking it seriously. If all this will go on, we are sure that our new generation will be able to change the way all these things are done in this country in the name of performing arts. In the absence of any arts academy, these colleges act as performing arts academies and have really come a long way.
