KARACHI: In literature, fog has often been used as an obvious metaphor for avoiding reality, for escapism that ultimately leads to defeatism. Eugene O’Neil’s masterpiece Long Day’s Journey into Night is a potent example of it.

But on Monday evening, German director Brigel Gjoka’s collaboration with students of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) in a performance titled Among Fog had a slightly different angle to it. Slightly, because here the performers tried to depict what’s been eating up a society that we’re familiar with, both on collective and individual levels.

Let’s first give credit where credit is due. Choreographer Gjoka and Mattia Gandini should be commended for coming up with a creative, if somewhat abstruse, idea and yet, by virtue of lithe and meaningful movements of the performers not making it come across as heavy or convoluted.

Among Fog basically discusses the difference and distance between dream and reality, between the quest for an ideal life and the travails of actual, physical existence. And it does so rather well.

The performance begins with a man’s (Vajdaan Shah) arrival on stage. He talks about having a dream and gives reference to the famous Hamlet soliloquy ‘to be or not to be’, but immediately clarifies that his dream does not relate to that Shakespearean mulling over death. It’s something else.

It indeed is. The scene shifts from there to a party and that sets the ball rolling … in an unexpected direction. The dogs, the loud singing, the psychedelic music and the intrusion of a motorcyclist create ruptures in the sequence, ruptures that ironically link the story. All of that is done with the help of choreographed movements that range from groovy to brooding.

However, it’s not that simple. The director throws hints at the audience by suggesting noise distortions, visual alterations and by creating a veneer-like thing, suggesting the dual lives that the performers are leading.

The entrance of another man (Syed M. Jamil) presents the illusion-reality binary, which carries on till the last sequence of the act.

Among Fog, by all means, is a successful attempt. In fact, the originality of the concept requires for it to be produced on a larger platform where the hard work of the director, choreographers and performers (Vajdaan, Jamil, Joshinder, Shabana, Masood,, Erum, Haris and Zuhair) could be appreciated the way it merits.

There is no use nitpicking the play, if it can be called a play that is. But the one thing that could have been avoided was the use of the Urdu language which dilutes the effect of the sequential patterns. The reason for this is that the act starts with the first character using the English language.

Now either that should have been switched with Urdu and retained that way or just English could have been opted for. If the reason was to show the real-unreal duality, it’s not reason enough. The spectacle that Among Fog is demands concentration in every way.

The performance, which will be repeated on Tuesday (today), was part of the ongoing fourth National Academy of Performing Arts Theatre Festival.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2015

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