KARACHI: Let’s get this straight: Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco’s play ‘The Bald Soprano’ is one of those rare gems which will remain open to interpretation as long as they will be staged. Yes, there are certain fixed notions about its genesis and the title of the drama that came about as a cute goof-up by an actor, but once you see it unfolding on stage, you are left with no option but to salute the writer for making theatregoers scratch their heads in a good way. This was again proved on Thursday night during N-Cube Arts Productions’ version of ‘The Bald Soprano’, at the National Academy of Performing Arts.

Mr and Mrs Smith (Ali Junejo and Romana Haider) are a typical English couple. It is evident from their demeanour that they don’t have a normal relationship. They have invited Mr and Mrs Martin (Momin Zafar and Sara Haider) to come over to their place. Their maid Mary (Natasha Ejaz) makes an appearance and gets the door for the Martins. When Mr and Mrs Martin enter, Mr and Mrs Smith are not in the room, so they converse with each other as strangers. Once their hosts join them, the conversation between the two pairs turns trivial. Just when the frivolity tends to become repetitive the local fire chief (Ameed Riaz), who is romantically involved with Mary, comes in.

The fire chief’s arrival provides a fresh impetus to the meeting, involving a storytelling session. But that too gets them nowhere and everything sounds pointless. The absurdity reaches its high point when the fire chief, while moving out of the house, says ‘the bald soprano’ without any rhyme or reason. This unhinges the couples in strange ways. What follows is a series of ludicrous and illogical exchange of dialogue among all the principal characters, ranging from the quotidian to the unusual. They shout at each other, and it’s in one of those moments that lights go off. When the lights are back on, there is another twist in the tail.

‘The Bald Soprano’, directed by Ali Junejo, is a must-see play primarily for the unbridled approach of the actors to their characters. They seem to care less about the script and more about their roles, which is ironically the trick to do justice to the text. At the same time, the build-up to the climax was intelligently done, for which hats off to the director.

But then it is hard not to praise the actors. Momin Zafar’s precise, Sara Haider’s honest, Romana Haider’s methodical, Ali Junejo’s passionate and Ameed Riaz’s focused performances made the audience, which was rather thin in attendance, enjoy the play despite its convoluted nature. The subtle drifts that the ostensibly meaningless lines had were nicely conveyed by all of them. For example, when the fire chief inquires about a fire and Mr Smith is trying to smoke his pipe causing the smoke to envelop the room, hinting at the state of denial of the characters, was cleverly done. Or when Mr and Mrs Martin repeat the words ‘how curious, bizarre, coincidence’, they (words) never lose their edge.

Natasha Ejaz, whom we know as a singer of decent merit, was a revelation. Her part of the loony maid was the one that had more emotional quotient than anyone else, and she managed to pull that off very well. That being said, she needs to utter her lines with clarity because sometimes she smothers them.

The Bald Soprano will run until June 20.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2014