Photo credit: Vanessa Alam ‘Chup’ (Silence) is a play about the family of a missing person. Their younger son was abducted three years ago and remains untraceable. The family is now receiving phone calls from an unknown number. The play was performed by the Olomopolo Junction five times over this weekend in Lahore at Olomopolo’s office in Muslim Town. The play revolves around five characters. Two aging parents, whose son, Saad, is missing. Their elder son, Salman, who now supports the family, is a single father. The wife of the missing person named Rabbia is a young homemaker. Salman is interested in marrying Rabbia but she is reluctant to file for a khula (divorce) from her missing husband. Everyone is fearful of Salman’s mother, who is adamant that her son is alive and trying to connect with the family through the silent calls. The family is struggling with the iron fist of the deep state. But also with internal struggles, the clash of interests and a lack of communication within it The household is dysfunctional and unhappy. Every character’s life is overshadowed by the missing relative and the complication it causes. The mother played by Bakhtawar Mazhar is obviously obsessed and eager to bring back her missing son- Saad. Mazhar is dominating and stubborn, while her old and frail husband, played by Sunil Shankar, is hard of hearing and often fails to communicate with his family. The father’s inability to hear without a hearing aide adds a lot of comic relief as well as tension to the dialogues. Salman, the hero of the play, has a daughter whose safety he is often worried about. He is a busy, fretful and now exhausted man who feels he has sacrificed too much for the family. He too is receiving calls from an unknown number. Much of the disagreement in the play is because Salman wants to move on from this tragedy and accept that his brother might never return. The name of the play refers to the silence during the phone calls, but also the lack of communication between the family members. The communication is often sparse and characters struggle to put their point of view across. They either fail to say things, delay them or end up conveying something very different from what they intended. Photo credit: Vanessa Alam The script is tight, engaging and suspenseful. The phone’s ominous ringing tone breaks the scenes and dialogues, bringing fear and uneasiness to every situation. It serves as a reminder of the power the state can have on these people, without ever being visible or heard. There is slight confusion related to the passage of time. Some additional information or hints after depicting time lapse could be helpful. Every actor performed wonderfully. The play is dark and sorrowful but not overly sentimental. Each character has a complex personal reality which manifests in the dialogues. The family is struggling with the iron fist of the deep state. But also with internal struggles, the clash of interests and a lack of communication within it. Characters constantly try and fail to explain themselves. They also routinely become aggressive, resort to shouting or repetition – thus adding to the drama. This is quite marvelous because the play is only an hour long. Needless to say, there is no dull moment in it. The hero, Fawad Khan, was very expressive and intense. Sunil Shankar who played the broken father on the brink of death was fitting. He conveyed his old age and anguish, not just through his dialogue delivery but also his body language. Kaif Ghaznavi gave a poignant performance as the beleaguered housewife dealing with the prospects of a lonely life ahead. But Bakhtawar Mazhar, who played the obsessive mother became the favorite of the crowd. Mazhar’s depiction was sensitive, controlled despite presenting unreserved maternal affection. Mazhar successfully conveyed the grief of an old mother whose son is missing for three years along with her naive optimism, dedication, and commitment to finding her son unlike everyone else in the family member. Everyone else seems skeptical, fearful or reluctant while the mother is a keeps the son and the issue of the missing persons alive. The issue of the missing persons, individuals allegedly abducted by the state, is a critical one. Their number is now said to be in the tens of thousands. And their families typically spend a lot of their time and money in the courts or for reaching out to the human rights groups. The receive a little help from the civil society but the bitter reality is that most missing persons, like Saad, remain missing forever. This lack of information and cooperation from government bodies becomes a curse. Women like Rabia can legally remarry but at a great emotional cost and guilt. Parents typically become emotionally disturbed. Sometimes, family members, like Salman, become determined to not pursue the case to save their other children or grandchildren. But others pursue it very courageously in public through protests and marches. This does help but has a great personal cost – particularly in terms of time and energy. Photo credit: Vanessa Alam This is a lengthy, risky and frustrating pursuit. The relatives, usually the wives and mothers, who opt for the struggle often spend a lot of their time commuting to the Sindh, Lahore or Islamabad High Court or to the Supreme Court. The protests visit lawyers, and activists, attempts to get the media’s attention and create an online presence takes a lot of time. Hence, this play is a sensitive look into the complex struggle to bring a missing loved one back in Pakistan. Overall, it was a stellar performance, which kept the audience engaged without ever becoming maudlin. The actors also contributed to the production. Fawad Khan, the hero of the play, wrote it too while Sunil Shankar, who plays the defeated father, directed it. The audiences came out teary-eyed and full of praise. Above all, this peeks into the lives of the people whose loved ones are missing is brutally suppressed in our mass culture. Therefore, despite its small scale, the play Chup ended a prolonged silence on the very painful issue of missing persons. The writer is based in Lahore, tweets as @ammarawrites and her works are found on www.ammaraahmad.com Published in Daily Times, June 27th 2018.