LAHORE, April 14: Four troupes and nine bands performed at the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop’s sixth International Youth Performing Arts Festival on Saturday. Lahore College of Arts and Sciences played Parday Kay Peechay Say Talim-i-Balighan, an innovative experiment in dovetailing a play by Khwaja Moeenuddin and a short story by Ismat Chughtai. Written and performed in the 1960s, the satire of Talim-i-Balighan is still relevant.

Black Fish, an improvisational comedy troupe that woke Karachi up to a new and unconventional mode of theatre in January 2003, was highly praised for its performance. Faris Khalid, Cyrus Viccajee, Olsen Almeida and Hadi Habib comprise the current line-up of play.

Karachi’s Funkar Theatre played Khoya Hua Aadmi, a story of a married couple in their late forties. The couple buys an apartment facing the sea in a posh locality in Karachi and dream about the kind of life they would lead in their new house - secure, peaceful and with all amenities. The play unfolds to show how in the city of lights, civic facilities are just dreams.

The Rawalpindi Campus of the National College of Arts staged Oas Gali Da Jawan, a play about two gravediggers who also steal shrouds.

The bands which performed were Orth, Omer and Salman, Orion, Lemon Fuzz, Drainage, Stranger, Brian Pilot, ACMS and Electric March.