KARACHI: Love is a shooting star. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Love makes the world go round. … How many lines can one of think of while describing love? Countless. And yet, it remains an exercise in futility, because a deeply personal experience that involves amour remains, at its very core, indescribable. This is one of the major themes that the play Mushk, directed by Kanwal Khoosat, aims to explore — explore, not unravel.

The play, which had its Karachi premiere at the Arts Council on Friday and will run till Sunday, introduces the audience to a well-furnished living room of a writer Sophia (Nimra Bucha) who is visited by a journalist Zoey (Sania Saeed) for an interview. Sophia is a recluse. She lives in a remote area; she doesn’t want to mingle with people. The apparent reason for Zoey’s interview is the author’s 21st book written in an epistolary form — a communication between a man and a woman. The woman’s character, as Zoey infers, is that of Sophia herself. Who is the man, then? Ay, there’s the rub.

Sophia is a gun-toting churlish woman. She always sounds sarky, on occasion cantankerous. The moment Zoey enters her house she does not allow her to feel comfortable. She hurls one snide remark after another at the journalist, even while discussing love, philosophy and literature. Zoey does get flustered in the beginning, but there is a sense of purpose to her engagement with the writer. She asks her pressing questions, albeit in a soft tone.

Sophia is a loner by choice, and the fact that at one point she doesn’t allow Zoey to leave her house indicates that loneliness is a double-edged sword. If it, on the one hand, allows her creative prowess to shine, on the other hand, it can have a debilitating effect on her heart and mind. So the two characters become heart and mind of a single body. It’s up to the audience to decide which is which.

The age-old question of identity — of gender, social strata, etc, — is also thrown into the mix, and works well.

Mushk is written by Rabia Qadir and Seemal Numan, adapted from a Western play that the makers do not want to reveal. (We shall respect that.) The writers have done a worthy job. Some of their lines rib-tickle the audience and some compel them to mull over certain important aspects of existence. The set is delectable, and the production value is fine, of which Khoosat should feel proud. One thing though: sometimes trimming down a script in order for the content not to lose its thrust can be a good idea.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2017