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A festival of drama
The Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop organized the 3rd Youth Drama Festival at Al-Hamra Cultural Complex at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore recently. Conducted by Alena Peerzada, the youth drama festival tried to create a platform for the youth to exercise and express their talent in theatre. There is a vacuum as there are no institutions where one can learn this art. Since theatre is the base of the performing arts, this platform gave an opportunity for the students of theatre to exercise, watch and learn from each other.
In recent years, due to such activities, a lot of amateur theatre groups have come up and most of the educational institutions having realized the importance of theatre, encourage their students to participate in it.
Twenty-one theatre groups took part from different schools, colleges and universities. Some were privately formed amateur dramatic groups. It was interesting watching the performers exploring serious themes based on our society’s realities such as poverty and political exploitation as well as religious rigidities. There were some interesting adaptations of famous local and foreign writers. Some of the groups that performed, such as the National College of Arts students, had an ‘anti’ flavour in their productions, while others presented sitcoms and musicals.
The Government College, Lahore performed on Kamal Ahmed Rizwi’s adaptation Dagha baaz. Government College is famous for its historical dramatic society which was founded by an old Ravian, Mr Soondi. This society has produced brilliant actors and actresses in the past.
Fatima Jinnah Women’s University Rawalpindi performed Tum ko pagal na baneya to mera naam nahi. They explored a very sensitive issue of society; portraying characters whom people thought had gone mad.
The University of Punjab’s Institute of Arts and Design performed Kalay harf. This play was written by Bilal Ahmed who was inspired by Sarmad Sehba’s play. He tried to present comedy paired with a serious concept of life, to make people think.
Tonganic, a light comedy, was performed by KNS Events, based on the famous blockbuster movie Titanic. Sequences of the play were inspired by the movie, but characters were based on typical Punjabi culture to give it a comic touch.
A dance performance by Indu Mitha’s students was quite colourful. Theatre 13 performed No exit and Neeli ragain. This group started under the banner of Alliance Frances Theatre workshop, but as the Alliance has been closed, they didn’t have any platform.
All in all it was a successful event that concluded by inspiring a participation for the coming next 4th Youth Drama Festival.
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