KARACHI: The annual Karachi Theatre Festival organised and hosted by the Arts Council of Pakistan ended on Friday with the staging of the play Good Luck Darling directed by Farhan Alam. It was thoughtful of the organisers to round off things with that comedy written by the inimitable Athar Shah Khan aka Jaidi who passed away on May 10.

Produced earlier this year at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), it is a story of a seth who is currently financially challenged. His daughter is divorced from her husband but their joint account is something that the seth is eyeing to slide out of the economic crisis.

The evening, however, began with the speech by distinguished writer and satirist Anwar Maqsood who was the chief guest of the closing ceremony. He said it was a miracle that an event was held in the city in a difficult situation [when the world is hit by a pandemic]. In total 44 shows and 22 plays were put up [in two events — the Awami Theatre Festival and the Karachi Theatre Festival]. And the latter had eminent names such as Talat Husain, Sheema Kermani and Anjum Ayaz associated with it. He also lauded the effort put in by the younger lot and urged the media that it should encourage them.

Mr Maqsood argued drama doesn’t exist in Urdu literature [the way it ought to]. Agha Hashr and Imtiaz Taj’s dramas don’t have the kind of position that plays in literature usually have. The television industry gave us quality writers — Ashfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia, Bajia, Munno Bhai, Noorul Huda Shah etc.

Today, the plays being shown on TV are mostly written by women writers. They treat them like children; some treat them like twins because they have two of their plays being run on two TV channels simultaneously, with similar stories. Then every young hero [in TV dramas] has a beard making it difficult to recognise which is which. “If we take out beards and cell phones from TV plays, there wouldn’t be any play. Grandfather has cell phone, grandmother has cell phone, mother has cell phone … everyone has a cell phone [in plays].”

The writer said there’s tremendous talent in our country. He advised the younger breed of actors that if they get a chance to work in a TV play, they must read the script first because script is the backbone of any play. “If the script is good and director and actors are bad, people will still watch the play.”

Earlier, president of the Arts Council Ahmed Shah thanked all those who had contributed to the success of the festival, especially the coordinator of the event Meesam Naqvi and the leader of the council’s team Daniyal Umer which supported Mr Naqvi. Awards were also given to the participants of the festival by Anwar Maqsood.

Huma Mir conducted the ceremony.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2020