Actor Naseeruddin Shah and Hiba Shah came together on one platform to pay tributes to Ebrahim Alkazi and Ismat Chughtai. By Siddharth Choudhary
As a tribute to his guru Ebrahim Alkazi, Naseeruddin Shah performed the playGharwali written by Ismat Chughtai. Baring his intense passion for acting and setting the axis of the play on the stage by presenting his emotions in line with the writing, Shah gave a phenomenal performance.
For him, theatre is one medium which requires an actor to break the fourth wall and communicate with the audience as opposed to the restrictive limits of cinema. According to him, the actor is the sole prop required for a successful play, the stage could be bare for all he cared. While performing Gharwali, Shah took every character to heart and played them all out beautifully. From playing the part of 60-year-old Mirza to lajjo in her 20s, he captured the dyamics of an older man’s pure affections for a free-spirited woman who found him to be the only man worth his grain. Breaking the stereotypes by playing both male and female characters, Shah stood true to his own statement of the importance of the actor in theatre.
Along with Naseeruddin Shah, Hiba Shah performed Chui Mui, also written by Chughtai.
Through her exceptional theatrical skills, she was successfully able to portray the hardships of a woman in a patriarchal society. Deconstructing the play for the audience, by playing it out in its full potential, Hiba was able to capture the essence of the theme.
Both plays were comic on the surface. However, a deep meaning ran through their structures as was Chugtai’s style of sounding out societal problems.
The maturity as well as the seriousness in their performances were quite visible. Without the use of any visual artistry or sound systems, the actors were able to lay bare the soul of each story, relying only on their instincts and passion. Ebrahim Alkazi would have been proud of his disciples.