LAHORE: In an effort to completely do away with commercial theatre on its premises, the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (Pilac) has stopped providing the platform to commercial theatre groups for the last few months.

Pilac Director General Dr Sughra Sadaf told Dawn on Sunday that the institute had decided not to promote commercial theatre through its platform anymore. Such kind of theatre thrived on racy dialogues and suggestive dances, undermining the role of the public art institute in offering quality and healthy theatre activity. Double-meaning dialogues and vulgar comments in stage dramas have damaged the prestige of the institution. “We shall now introduce socially meaningful and message-oriented theatre for which we are going to write letters to different theatre groups and educational institutions,” she added.

Ms Sadaf said that many Punjabi writers and intellectuals had asked Pilac time and again to put an end to commercial theatre at their venue and publish books on Punjabi literature and Sufism. The intellectuals also urged the institute to stage message-oriented plays in collaboration with drama societies of different educational institutions and theatre groups involved in socially relevant and objective theatre.

Culture secy says mulling over ‘wiping out’ commercial theatre from arts council

She further said that in an effort to change the course of things at Pilac and reinvent theatre activity, the institute organised a few ventures with Ajoka Theatre. Since the institute had decided to put a stop to commercial theatre, it would now collaborate with theatre groups and drama societies to stage plays that could be enjoyed by families.

Commenting on the ending of commercial theatre at Pilac, Shahid Mehmood Nadeem of Ajoka Theatre called it a great step, saying the primary focus of cultural institutes should be to promote young theatre groups besides the established ones. He said commercial theatre should be replaced with good and qualitative entertainment.

When asked if the Lahore Arts Council planned to end commercial theatre at Alhamra, the council’ Executive Director Ather Ali Khan said: “We are streamlining and improving the commercial plays here and have asked the theatre producers to bring new scripts, which are message oriented.”

He added that commercial plays being staged at the council were quite controlled and they did not allow any vulgar dances or dialogues.

Culture and Information Secretary Raja Jahangir said that the decision to not hold commercial plays at Pilac would not be reverted at any cost.

“We are also thinking about wiping out commercial theatre from the Lahore Arts Council and this point will be raised in the meeting of the council’s Board of Governors on Sept 5. The youth and amateur theatre groups will be provided an opportunity to showcase their talent at cultural institutions.”

He said though he was facing a lot of pressure from various quarters on the closure of commercial theatre at Pilac, but he was adamant that cultural institutes should come up with quality and socially meaningful entertainment.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2019