Rookies turned earnest!

By Fatima Zakir

No more blabbing about the political instability of Karachi and no more criticizing the government for broken roads, lack of basic necessities of life. Time to have fun! You can hang out with friends, spend time chatting on the Internet or get hooked to your mobile phones by sms-ing your pals. But what we lack when it comes to entertainment is recreation. Any little effort of putting up together a play or a musical or a concert instils hope and excitement into the otherwise dull life of Karachiites.

This time we had a faction of teenagers who got together to form a theatrical group by the name of Rookies. When the young assistant producer came to the office and invited us to the play, I thought it would be a good time pass. But on arriving at the venue and stepping inside the auditorium, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. And to further prove me wrong, the play was very well executed. The funds generated through the play will be given away in charity to the Hope Foundation which works for the health and education of the impoverished population, especially women and children, of Pakistan. Before the play started, a presentation about the NGO and its efforts in helping the suffering humanity was given.

A lot has been said about the backdrop of the play… but what was it actually like? Well, it was based on Oscar Wilde's play 'The Importance of Being Ernest' which is a comedy of manners on the seriousness of society. It was first performed for the public on February 14, 1895 at the St. James' Theatre, London. It is basically set in England during the late Victorian era and its primary source of humour is based on the protagonist, Jack's fictitious brother, Ernest.

The story was about Algernon (Zeeshan Shah, also the director) who had an imaginary friend Bunbury who lived in the country. Whenever Algernon had to avoid any social gathering, he made use of his imaginary country friend and ran away from socializing. Algernon was no doubt the highlight of the show as he captured the audience's attention from the very first dialogue of the script.

Coming back to the story, Algernon's best friends, John Worthing created his fictitious brother Ernest for the same purpose of avoiding unwanted company. Worthing, played by Zaid Majeed, was perfect in his timings of comedy. The whole two hour play revolved around the procedures through which the two characters kept coming out of their self created personas and wooing their dream ladies.

Talking about ladies… Mrs. Bracknell (Mushal Zaman) and Ms. Prism (Hafsa Zuberi) stood out among the rest. Though their roles were not the main leads, they established themselves as better actors than a lot of other people working in the industry.

We have praised the acting enough. The costumes were superb as well, and so was the set. The dialogue delivery was too good – the school kids were sure very talented!

The two most important things of comedy are dialogue delivery and timing of humour. And that had the crowd in stitches. Just check this out… "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." And other phrase like, "I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person."

These are just a few situations mentioned here, the rest was equally exciting. Though the play started an hour late, the wait was worth it. It was surprising to see how the kids managed to pay attention to every little detail associated to the theatre. Now, all we do is hope to get some more projects from The Rookies!