Dark Room - My First Theatre Play As a Professional Actor

When I entered into the field of theatre arts to learn acting then I never thought that it is so much difficult. Like what you watch the artists today in our media industry, 95% of them don’t know what actually acting is. Acting requires proper education and training which is taught in National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore, National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) Karachi and Performing Arts and Culture Society (PACS Pakistan) Karachi. So these three institutions are providing quality acting education in which PACS Pakistan is the best. I personally took admission in the institute where I did course of theatre arts whose duration was 3 months. In this time period, I learned a lot, I understood acting, its history, diction, uses of stresses and pauses, and everything which should be known by any professional actor. After my training, I performed in a play named Dark Room as a project of my semester.

Basically Dark Room is a super hit theatre play written by famous actor, writer and director of Pakistani media industry Sarmad Sehbai. He performed this play with his team in 1971 and won the best play award in Urdu Theatre Festival 1971. Now, on 31st May 2015, I and my team performed this play again in PACC auditorium. This time, the director was my acting teacher and a renown face of Pakistani media industry Ali Sheikh who is also a professional actor and graduated from National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA). This was the first project of Ali bhai as a director.

Siddiqui, Jamshed and Kamran during a scene

The play is actually based upon the corrupt system of our country and different aspects related to it such as unemployment, morality, social values, etc. Unfortunately we are also facing these problems today. Well I tell you about the story that the drama contains 4 friends Siddiqui, Jamshed, Kamran and Zafar. All have their respective professions. Basically these guys are dispossessed from the originality of their professions and went on the wrong ways. The reason was injustice, unemployment, no regard of their talent and other negative aspects of the society.

Siddiqui
Siddiqui is the leading character of this drama. He is a scandal reporter. When he started journalism then due to his extra ordinary truth facts of writing, the society rushed him into the jail. After that, he realized that to write truth is the biggest sin in this country. So, he started scandals reporting.

Jamshed
Jamshed is a porn photographer. He creates and sells photographs of nude girls. From this job, he earns a lot. Students specially buy bundles of photographs from him. Even police does not take any action against him because the policemen also order and buy porn photographs from Jamshed.

Karman
Karman is a receptionist in a five star hotel, the guy who is most educated and well-mannered among all the other characters. In the hotel, he has a friend Mr. Jackson and a girlfriend Teena, both are from abroad. Mr. Jackson promised to take him and Teena abroad and Kamran waits for that time because he also wanted to make his career bright and left that dark room. Although, Jackson took only Teena to abroad and left Karman and Teena also cheated with him and went happily with Jackson. So, Karman started back his life in the Dark Room again.

Zafar
Zafar is a fine artist who is so frustrated. He is the only one who left the room and went to his village to take his right back from his uncle. He had his own lands in the village which was taken possession of his uncle. But when he came back after losing the ground, the story is actually started where Jamshed teased Zafar because he went to his village so confidently to take his right back. But Siddiqui calmly explains him to go again to snatch his right.

Rather than these four characters, there is also a 5th character in this drama whose name is Ismail. He is a clever school boy. I actually played that role. Well there are only three scenes of Ismail in the drama. But all of them are so powerful. Ismail really scares from a character Sultan who always snatches his ball and stands in the route of him from where he goes to school. When Ismail met Zafar in the play then he urged Ismail not to scare with Sultan. Zafar hardly got angry on Ismail and asked till when will you scare from Sultan? Go and snatch your right. At the end, Ismail killed Sultan, he comes to Zafar and tells him about this killing. So, Zafar learnt a lesson from this killing and goes back again to his village to take his lands back.

Me as "Ismail" during a scene

Well as a professional actor, the character of Ismail was very challenging for me. When Ali bhai casted me for this role, he told me that the role truly suits you and you can perform it very well. I accepted and started its preparation. In the first scene, my ball falls into the dark room where Siddiqui, Jamshed and Kamran are already present. They started to play with it. I entered into the room and said, “my ball, please give me my ball”. They teased me and don’t give it to me then I cried. Siddiqui and Jamshed make me scare from Sultan. Suddenly Zafar entered into the room unexpectedly and all the other members were shocked. I took the ball and escaped from the room.

In the second scene, Zafar asked details about me. When I told him about Sultan then he scolded me and said that why do you scare from Sultan? He urged me not to scare him and fight with him. In the last scene when all the 4 friends are present in the dark room, I came after killing Sultan, my shirt turned into red from his blood. I said to Zafar, “I threw Sultan into the well, I killed him. I don’t scare from him, I don’t scare.” While saying these dialogs, I holded the foot of Zafar and then slept. This was the end of drama.

The whole audience really liked our performance. We received a huge sound of applause and my first theatre play was very successful. Director Ali Sheikh also sent the pictures of the play to writer Sarmad Sehbai who currently resides in Lahore. He also liked our pictures. It was great feelings when I stand in front of the huge audience and all were clapping, appreciating. I can’t express my feelings in words. Allah gave a successful start to my acting career and I am really thankful to Him. I also want to thank to my director Ali bhai, the whole cast and crew of the play because we all proved a confident team work. My institution PACS Pakistan which gave me a platform where I proved my mettle in acting and I am still learning there. Thanks to my family, friends and some fans who know me and who liked my acting, emotionally and morally supported me. Insha Allah this journey will never have end and I will do more better in future.

The grand bao of the whole cast after the play

Director Ali Sheikh addressing the audience after the play

Furious 7 - A Review From My Point Of View

The 7th franchise of Fast and Furious series (Furious 7) was released on 3rd April 2015. From that time till now, the movie has crossed $525 million to be a commercial hit and still earning. The featured point in this movie is that it is the last series of the rapid growing roster Paul Walker who died in a horrible car accident almost over a year ago. It was shocking news for all the fans of this series but the movie was almost completed on that time. The remaining parts were completed with the help of Paul’s 2 younger brothers Cody and Caleb and some computer graphics were also used to look alike the face of Walker.

 Almost all our favorite stars are same in this series as like the remaining parts. The new addition in this piece is Kurt Russell who played the character of a grizzled governmental order giver and Nathalie Emmanuel as a British hacker. Well, the movie is about the revenge of Owen Shaw who was defeated by the Furious team in 6. In this latest part, Shaw’s brother Deckard (Jason Statham) takes the revenge from the heroes team. Deckard attempts to pick of the Furious family one-by-one. When the family was attending the funeral of one of their own, then Vin follows an unknown car which is actually Deckard’s. They finally meet in an underpass and fight. After some time, Kurt appears and then urges Vin and his team to recover a hacker and her surveillance program by which a user can easily hack any phone or camera on the universe to track someone down.

So for this purpose, the whole team prepares itself and starts the mission. Here action, there action, before action, after action, everywhere you will see the unbelievable action and stunts. Seriously, the movie is a blast in all the country’s cinemas. Well, when talk about the story then it is a fair action movie and the execution of this action is almost perfect. After every few minutes, you will find a new situation. People specially liked the jokes of wise-cracking Tyrese who always make the situations very satyr. I also enjoyed the flavors of some new cars in this franchise of Furious like some motors from Europe and as the film making is done in Japan so you will also see some real Japanese brands running on the roads. I think the climax of the movie was that point where the protagonist from Tokyo Drift Lucas shows his appearance and discusses the death of Han who died in the 3rd series of the movie. So you should watch this scene if you want to really enjoy the whole.

Well, I say that if you watch the previous series Fast 5, Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift then you understand much better that what is going on in the latest piece. Like others, this new movie also contains more action and fewer dialogues. It is a fact that the whole movie was almost cancelled as a result of Paul’s death and there is no doubt in it that it is an unbearable loss for the whole team. But the filmmakers decided to use the technology to fulfill the absence of Paul and then finished the movie. His death also urged the filmmakers to wind up his character (Brian O’Connor) from the upcoming series. At the end of the movie, a touching tribute was also given to Paul that really made me sad. I pray for him that may God rest his soul in peace.