Lights Out! puts chaos and hilarity onstage in Islamabad hilarity
Lights Out! puts chaos and hilarity onstage in Islamabad
Tughral Turab Ali
Islamabad
Hilarty
The theatrical scene in Islamabad has been heating up lately with many amateur productions being put up for consumption. Thus one walked into the Lahore Grammar School’s (Islamabad) presentation of Lights Out! at the National Art Gallery with a mild sense of anticipation.
What followed was more than a pleasant surprise.
The play, directed by the very talented Osman Khalid Butt, is based on Play on! by Rick Abbot. It revolves around a group of actors, directors and one fairly irritating and flamboyant authoress, trying to put together a performance of a play-within-a-play called Murder Most Foul. Act 1 of Lights Out! is all about a nightmare of a rehearsal for Murder Most Foul that leaves the director of the play exasperated and his rival director rubbing his hands in glee.
Act 2 opens on a dress rehearsal gone wrong that leaves the audience wondering what miraculous twist in the play would result in a happy ending for the hapless cast when they would put on the actual play.
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Act 3 confirms the absence of any such miracle and showcases the disastrous performance by the actors of Murder Most Foul. However, in the disastrous performance of Murder Most Foul lay the brilliance and talent of the cast of Lights Out!
The adaptation of the script, by Osman, was very current and had modern pop-culture references galore. For example, humour was drawn in one scene from the ‘theatrical production’ of Twilight by the rival director (played with biting precision by a 13-year-old Wali Khawaja) The uproarious scene involved live singing by the cast with some hilarious satirical content, mocking the worldwide phenomenon of Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling book.
Overall, the play was artistically sound, meticulously directed by Osman, and left the audience howling with laughter on many occasions. Osman deserves a lot of credit for the way his young cast (ranging from 13 – 16 years old) carried their roles. For example Furutan Najmi and Nida Khan showed a lot of dexterity in the way they maneuvered their roles as Saul and Violet, switching between being actors in repeated rehearsals and then actors putting on a crumbling performance. Nida in particular was hilarious in the way she played an overacting yet disengaged actress and swished about the stage with her hair in something the director dubbed as “hairography.”
The proof of quality of the performance for one was definitely the way none of the actors dropped the ball at any stage. At one point, a personal favourite bit in the show, was when Osman, Noor Mukadam and Iyla Hussain were singing a very lively and funny medley, there was a sudden power outage on the sound and lights equipment. To the credit of the three, they didn’t miss a beat as the lights and sound came back on and continued as if nothing had happened. This was no mean feat considering that they were actually singing live and the medley consisted of careful choreography.
Iyla also deserves special mention for playing the authoress, the main driving force behind the insanity in the play. One was never quite sure what to expect once she was on stage. It’s a fairly difficult role to do as it can very easily cross the line and go over the top. However Iyla kept the right balance throughout her presence on stage.
The cast had other great performances as well; Mustapha Zafar, Daima Hussain, Muhammad Rimmel, Saneela Khan, Ghazain Jamil (clearly a crowd-favorite with his flamboyant antics as the ‘director’ of Murder Most Foul) and Amann Omar all pitched in to help make the play a raging success. Noor Mukadam shone as Louise, the frustrated sound and stage manager of Murder Most Foul. There were special appearances by Humna Raza (the production manager from LGS) and Noor Chima (also the assistant director for the production.) Osman himself left people doubling up in laughter in a special appearance as Edward Cullen.
Additionally, the attention to detail, be it with sets, costumes, or the carefully choreographed way the actors maneuvered themselves on stage was more than evident. The results were extremely professional.
The one area of the play which could have used a little more work was the voice projection of the cast. However, given that the average age of the performers was around 15, one should not be too critical. I am not sure, though, whether the use of stage mics helped the performance. The audience would at points lose some of the voice of the actor as they walked away from the mike and then be jarred by someone’s collar mic coming on.
The other aspect which one was not entirely sure about was the use of accents (and there were quite a few). Accents are fairly difficult to pull off even by seasoned actors and in this particular production I feel their usage hampered the delivery of the actors to a certain extent.
Overall, Lights Out! was a thoroughly entertaining affair by the students of LGS. Considering their lack of theatre experience, given their age, they put up a really good show and should be proud of the1selves.
Source: Instep
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