{"id":10925,"date":"2021-07-19T07:49:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T07:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/?p=10925"},"modified":"2021-07-19T07:49:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T07:49:10","slug":"playwright-anwar-maqsood-is-completing-the-script-for-saadhay-chauda-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/2021\/07\/19\/playwright-anwar-maqsood-is-completing-the-script-for-saadhay-chauda-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Playwright Anwar Maqsood is completing the script for Saadhay Chauda August"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theatre in Pakistan may be at a standstill thanks to the coronavirus but there are little snippets that sometimes float out, hinting at exciting developments. One such snippet is a poster showing a map of the subcontinent, with a red line representing the Indo-Pak border. Jinnah and Gandhi\u2019s images are at opposite ends of the poster and the words \u2018coming soon\u2019 are etched across the map.<\/p>\n

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On its own, the poster is ambiguous, simply implying a story centred around the history of Partition but not really specifying an association with theatre. Had this poster declared the name of the production that is coming, hopefully soon, it would have led to definite excitement.<\/p>\n

It is, after all, the poster of\u00a0Saadhay Chauda August<\/em>, the third and final theatrical production in the theatrical trilogy initiated 10 years ago by playwright Anwar Maqsood and the thespian entourage Kopykats Productions. The series had started off with\u00a0Pawnay Chauda August<\/em>, a play that had been hugely successful, running to full houses and bringing back the trend of visiting the theatre.\u00a0Sawa Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0was the second instalment, also winning extensive critical and commercial acclaim.<\/p>\n

After this, the Chauda August omnibus was set aside with other plays like\u00a0Aangan Terha<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Half Plate<\/em>\u00a0coming into the spotlight. A collaboration with the late Haseena Moin was in the works, a theatrical version of her hit drama\u00a0Ankahi<\/em>. But then Covid upended theatre last year and continues to do so. A hope for better days in the near future led Maqsood to finally turn his attention to the \u2018Chauda August\u2019 series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started writing\u00a0Saadhay Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0but then I left it in the middle. Theatre had come to a standstill and it was the sort of drama that needed to be staged to a full house rather than an auditorium at a 40% or 50% capacity,\u201d says the playwright. \u201cNow though, the script is almost complete. I have still told Kopykats Productions that it should only be staged once things are better and theatres are fully open.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Kopykats Productions is planning to stage their earlier hits,\u00a0Pawnay<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sawa Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0later this summer. Given the continued onslaught of the coronavirus, it is likely that the plays will be shown to auditoriums filled up to only a fraction of their full capacity.<\/p>\n

Kopykats Productions CEO Dawar Mehmood says, \u201cWe know that it will take some time for theatres to be fully functional but we do want to begin drawing people back to the stage.\u00a0Pawnay<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sawa Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0were very successful but they were staged a while back and people may want to see them again. Also, there\u2019s an entire new generation that has grown up and didn\u2019t see the plays the first time around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawar did not comment on the upcoming\u00a0Saadhay Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 it is evidently a hush hush plan and besides, there\u2019s no knowing when the play will finally be staged. Maqsood, however, says, \u201cThe play features interactions between Gandhi and Jinnah and is divided into four different parts: one set in Kashmir, the second in Lahore, then Delhi and the final part in Trafalgar Square.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, the playwright said in an interview that he no longer considered writing for TV an option because he did not agree with the content that he saw on local channels. \u201cThe entertainment trends set by TV today are not my style. My plays are serious. There is no vulgarity. There are messages even within my comic dialogues,\u201d he said. \u201cTheatre is more to my style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does Maqsood think that\u00a0Saadhay Chauda August<\/em>\u00a0will be staged soon? \u201cPerhaps by next year,\u201d he muses, \u201cbut we can\u2019t be sure. It all depends on the coronavirus situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this very dismal scenario, it has been heard that the Karachi Arts Council is contemplating developing an open-air theatre, which would diminish the risk of contracting the virus even if a play was shown to a full audience. \u201cYes, it is something that they are working on,\u201d confirmed Maqsood. \u201cIt may be the only secure option for now. Things were getting better but now they are getting worse again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theatre in Pakistan may be at a standstill thanks to the coronavirus but there are little snippets that sometimes float out, hinting at exciting developments. One such snippet is a poster showing a map of the subcontinent, with a red line representing the Indo-Pak border. Jinnah and Gandhi\u2019s images are at opposite ends of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10927,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925\/revisions\/10927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}