by Halima Mansoor

Date:14-11-06

Source: Dawn

LAHORE, Nov 13: Mirza Bagh, an adaptation of Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats, reveals one of many things - how large aristocratic families often preserve themselves in homespun glorification of the family and try to retain the titles and the honour of a family long past its prime. Performed by an Indian troupe, Yatrik, the play grasps the audience as an illusion of theatre by presenting reality on stage.

Set in the mid 1970s, when land owners were losing face along with property, the play opens with a monologue by one of the protagonists, Farhan. Married into this once rich and prestigious family, he unfolds the play’s setting: the wedding of the youngest daughter of the crumbling household. One of the five siblings, equally complex and well-threaded characters, the bride-to-be, Aliya, seems to suffer from clinical depression and loses herself by playing the piano or singing when something disturbs her equilibrium. This theme of music is fluid and constant throughout the play as various climactic moments are preceded or triggered by classical Bram or Strauss. For her wedding four siblings return, while the absence of one underlines the state of their father.

The once legendary judge, father of five and husband to a woman of an uncertain past, now almost senile, is quartered in a room, while his eldest child, referred to as Apa, takes care of him.

Apa, the mother of a perhaps illegitimate child, who is surreptitiously living in an orphanage, takes care of the once grand ancestral home that is now crumbling her away with its structure. Zara, the third sister married to the overconfident, sarcastic Farhan is an alcoholic who refuses to accept her problem. The fourth sister ran away to a convent in England and is considered one of the reasons the father completely disintegrated from his awe inspiring self into a blithering deluded soul who is only eerily heard through a baby monitor fixed centre stage. The fifth sibling, Qasim, an almost manic personality, tipping towards homosexuality, claims to have a German wife, whose existence the other siblings doubt. A teetotaler, ex alcoholic uncle, threads through this eccentric dysfunctional family as a silent character who has no reason to talk since he need not use his voice to order the bottle anymore.

Amidst these characters pulsating striving against each other is a calm logical professor who asked to chronicle this once historic powerful family’s saga. And chronicle he does, as with gentle tact he corrects Qasim for claiming famous names from previous centuries and other races once rubbed shoulders with this family. As is often the case with grand families, there is a conviction that nothing is wrong. The family reveals not even to itself how severe the issues are till the death of the father who now ridden by conflicts of the past, takes to his death when he hears the voice of his daughter, the nun, on a tape she sent home. Also with the help of quiet intrusions by the professor who with tactful enquiry brings forth facts that the family refuses to accept.

Each character without over playing their role conveys a quiet desperation as each is pushed towards their own closure.

A point of admiration would be the set; with no set change and props being introduced by characters as needed, there is little distraction in the play, it flows along a natural course that intrigues the audience enough to sit up and listen.

The beauty of the enactment lies in the convincing acting, simple sets and the feeling that one is actually looking through a window into the actual lives of a family about to end an epoch of opulent and grandiose living.