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A hide and seek affair
Karachi’s upper strata of society seem to be getting bolder by the day. A blatant illustration of this was the recent OGS (Old Grammarians’ Society) performance of The Amorous Ambassador, which was hilarious, but one couldn’t help feeling that the humour was somewhat risqué for local tastes, shocking the sensibilities of many.
As the title suggests, the play revolves around the shenanigans of a diplomat – the newly appointed American ambassador to Britain — whose sex drive takes control of his apparently otherwise staid life. But all those around him are also equally physically charged, so the ambassador’s country home becomes the backdrop for everyone’s clandestine love affairs.
The tone of the play is set from the word go. Harry Douglas (Umar Rana) announces that he is leaving for Scotland for the weekend, while his wife, Lois (Umbereen Beg-Mirza) and daughter Debbie (Raaheen Z. Mani) also plan on taking off. However, as each takes the tight-lipped butler Perkins (Mervyn Hosein) into confidence, it becomes obvious that no one really has any intentions of leaving. Douglas has invited the next-door neighbour, Marian Murdoch (Simeen Shoro) to spend the weekend with him, while Lois has invited her boyfriend, Joe (Kamal K. Jabbar).
OGS plays are anxiously awaited because they have come to signify wit and sophistication at their best –even when presenting slapstick comedy. It is a shame, then, when such plays go overboard in an attempt to appear modern
Between hilarious entries and exits as father and daughter weave their way in and out of rooms without being detected with their partners and Douglas’s attraction to Joe, who dresses up as a woman to avoid getting caught, the play takes on farcical proportions. To add to the mayhem, a bomb threat at the American embassy results in a bimbo secretary, Faye Baker (Maya Ismail) and a ‘mad marine,’ Captain South (Jawad Sarwana) moving into the country house and sealing it off. Making matters even steamier are Perkins and Faye, who find themselves glued to each other – in more ways than one – and Lois, who arrives on the scene with schemes of pursuing her own private affair.
There is no doubt that the play boasted of many comical moments and was by and large well acted. One has begun to associate OGS plays with certain faces – such as that of Raaheen, Maya, Umbereen, Mervyn and Umar – which have become the life of these comedies and rarely tend to disappoint. However, this time round, one felt that Umar Rana over-acted his part. The play, scripted by Michael Parker, was as it is, replete with double-meaning lines and innuendoes. One feels that Rana’s highly suggestive actions could have well been dispensed with. Jawad and Kamal are proving to be valuable relatively new additions to the team and did justice to their roles, as did Simeen who appeared in an OGS production for the first time.
Since the entire play was set in the living room of the country house, there were no changes in the stage setting, designed by Anjum Karim (also the producer of the play). The set was elaborate enough with French windows overlooking a garden backdrop, a comfortable sofa that conveniently doubled as a bed, bar-table, console, desk and four doors leading to the various rooms in the house completing the picture of a cozy English living room.
OGS plays are anxiously awaited because they have come to signify wit and sophistication at their best – even when presenting slapstick comedy. It is a shame, then, when such plays go overboard in an attempt to appear modern for they defeat the purpose of being pertinent to contemporary life and in fact, lose out on the panache they have come to represent.
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