KARACHI: The art of dramatised reading on stage has caught the fancy of a big number of theatregoers. While it is not as arduous a task as, let’s say, putting up a full-length play, it still requires a great deal of preparation to get the right tone and expression of the text being read. Olomopolo’s production Likhey Jo Khat Tujhey at the National Academy of Performing Arts’ Zia Mohyeddin theatre on Friday evening got off to a shaky start. Sadly, it barely recovered from it throughout the performance.

Why the shaky start? There were two artists, Sania Saeed and Tajdar Zaidi, who read pieces, some of them letters, from works of Urdu literature. Zaidi was the first one to speak. His microphone wasn’t working. One thought that both were going to go through their lines like that to project their voices but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Zaidi was, in the initial part of the programme, hardly audible. And when Saeed started her bit, her microphone was working nice and fine. It created a jarring contrast. For some strange reason, the technical staff of the production team didn’t do much to salvage the situation. However, as the show progressed, Zaidi’s voice became more and more audible, and at least what he was saying was being understood.

Zaidi also looked a trifle nervous. He was reading from the text and yet fumbled on a couple of occasions, which was perhaps why his pronunciation too, albeit negligibly, suffered — holnaak sounded holenaak, for example. Saeed was good most of the time. Compared to her co-artist, she sat in a stationary position in her sofa whereas Zaidi moved his hands vigorously whenever he needed to put stress on a line.

The reading began with Zaidi’s rendition of a Majeed Amjad poem. Again, since one couldn’t properly hear him, one couldn’t appreciate his effort.

Things began to get better when the two artists read a piece by Fikr Taunsvi (it’s Fikr not Fikar) in which the characters called BCD and ABC exchanged love letters using lines tinged with humour. It was funny.

It was followed by a letter penned by none other than Josh Malihabadi. Now Josh sahib is known for being grandiloquent. Not in that piece of prose though. It was a fine act.

Then, arguably, came the highlight of the evening: Saeed’s reading of a Shafiqur Rehman write-up from Mazeed Himaqatein, a letter titled ‘Mangetar Ke Naam’ penned by a female character. She did justice to the humorous and occasionally satirical sentences by merely modulating her voice.

However, when the actors read Col Mohammad Khan’s famous piece Tusi Ka Tota, they could not keep up with the preceding performance. It was one item that had the most scope for grabbing the audience’s attention. The artists’ reading lacked the bite that the text inherently contained.

In the final segment, Saeed’s attempt at presenting Safia Akhtar’s letter written to her husband by mellowing her tone took the show to a serious domain.

In between readings, live music was played.

Likhay Jo Khat Tujhey concludes its Karachi run on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2018