Seven days have passed today since the Ajoka Theatre group staged a performance of Dekh Tamasha Chalta Ban at the Alhamra Arts Council, the Mall. In ways it was no ordinary performance.
The play spoke in times of silence – to an audience who was only a spectator. Audience being a spectator is both lamented and punned upon, powerfully combined with the aesthetic and artistic excellence of the renowned theatre group. It is outspoken, it is loud – if not sometimes too stereotypical. It is artistically excellent – for it does not fail to move the audience.
The play attempts to move the audience – the immoveable pivot, around which the conflicts revolve. The play treads upon a dangerous subject matter. The setting amidst which it began explains it.
Right before the show began, those that the play made a subject of its metaphorical puns had walked by the venue, moving on to praise the murderer of Salmaan Taseer. Banners praising the man were raised in front of the Punjab Assembly, and at the same moment, within a relatively isolated Hall 3 at the Alhamra, did Madiha Gauhar take to the stage and speak, “When the seeds of religious extremism were being cast by General Zia and hatred was being bred and the blasphemy laws were created, we wrote and performed a play which we will present before you now. We dedicate it to Salmaan Taseer shaheed because of the value he stood for.” She continues, “The artist is in a sense prophetic. He leaves the world with questions, questions that it must answer, lest they stagnate. Here, we hope to ask questions. Questions you shall carry with you. Now, let the play begin.”
HYPOCRISY’S CELEBRATIONS BEGIN: A dark stage, dim light, a crucifix, three white boxes. This is the set. The play begins. A song greets us: ‘watch the show and be gone’ are the lines repeated. The entire cast comes together to sing it. It is a medley celebrating the hypocrisy of the spectator – the hypocrisy of the audience. It ends. A silence ensues.
Light music rises. The narrator stands up. He names himself Ravi. He says, “What shall follow is merely a drama. It has nothing to do with reality. Do not join it with reality. It has nothing to do with your life or mine. I am a narrator and you are the audience. What we watch is all fabricated. Be spectators! only spectators.”
… ASTRAY NEED TO BE CLEANSED: Three men in white robes appear on the stage. White robes, white beards, hands with beads, they are the representatives of organized religion. They are the upholders of good. They turn to the crowd and utter their own medley, “We are god’s people. We have left the world. To the believer, is promised heaven. For the denier, the noose. All those who have turned astray need to be cleansed.”
Ravi returns. He speaks. “Every drama is caught between good and evil. And as you know good always trumps evil, as white trumps black. So it shall be in this story.”
The white men speak to the crowd. “Congratulations that you have been born human. Congratulations. Our path in life is known. We know we must fight evil for success in both worlds.”
ZEROS AND ONES: Here the strength of the play is to combine the binaries that the cleric posits to construct a black and white world. “We need unity and faith and discipline,” the clerics say. “On the other side there is destruction and regret.” Faith and unity are put in binary opposition to destruction and regret. Having posited the world in this binary, the white men take positions on the white pedestals set on stage.
Enter the black men. With masked faces and wicked movements these men represent evil. Only that they take dictation from the white men. The plays claim is clear, “The white men have adopted a garb that hides their true self. Their words contradict themselves. Under the garb of the language of morality is hidden all immoral.”
NOOSE-FULL OBSESSION: The black men speak of the need for a human to put the noose on. Declaring this need they began to move into the audience scouring for individuals who have deviated. The first to be picked up – which appears the add-on by Ajoka – was a Christian lady at a village whose ‘crime’ was drinking water from the village well (an obvious allude to Aasiya Bibi). She pleaded her case to the crowd – but was put to the gallows while the white men stood and watched. And so the hangings in the play continued. And after each hanging the white men would stand and deliver a moral lecture – speak of the necessity of unity and faith and discipline, and of uniting for the cause of god. And they continue of the need to put those who deviate to the noose.
And so a school teacher is sacrificed to the blood thirsty noose for teaching science. And then a poet is sacrificed to the noose for preaching art. And then a woman is sacrificed to the noose for walking on the road.
It is this obsession with the noose for everyone who challenges the white men’s narrative that becomes the central metaphor which the play uses to critique the decline in spaces of critical thought.
BEEP BEEP! REALITY CHECK: …and what of our long forsaken narrator Ravi. He remains critical in playing up the audience pun. Ravi speaks after every hanging to remind the audience that “None of this is real, none of this has anything to do with your life, none of this is anything but a play, crafted by his pen and completely in control.” The narrator continues to remind the audience – as individuals are plucked from within it – that this is only a play until an audience member speaks up. She speaks up to say, “No, this is the world I live in. This is not a tale from your pen. This is what happens in the society around me.”
IT’S SIMPLE; HANG THEM: The narrator begins to deny – begins to tell her to not confuse imagination with reality, theatre with life. The white men warn her to shut up. The black men warn her to shut up. But she does not. And then she is pursued into the crowd and comes to the middle of the audience from which she is dragged to stage and put on the noose.
The narrator reminds the audience – this was not reality. But another audience member speaks. He too is warned and shunned. He speaks again. And he is put to the noose. The cast of the play begins to turn on the audience. The distance between audience and the play is broken.
And with each tightening noose the thirst of blood of the white men and black men increases. And they begin to get out of the control of the narrator. The narrator tells the audience not to worry. “A new writer is being called to ‘correct’ the script.” The cast initially responds to the narrator. But after a pause it turns on the narrator – and eventually puts the narrator to the noose to his screams of innocence, “This is only a play and I am only a narrator and this has nothing to do with reality.” The moral madness of society – and the distance with which we observe it as a spectating audience – is shattered. ‘Watch the show and be gone’ is its last lament. By now it is hoped that the audience has underst
