Bhager Manush-a historical play

A scene from the play Bhager Manush by playwright Mannan Hira and directed by Aly Zaker

Many historical characters are represented in this play as insane because of their ridiculous activities during the partition. Selfish as well as evil political leaders, the negative use of religion for fulfilling their immoral desires and the effect of this on the general people is the theme.

Playwright Mannan Hira has written this play on the request of the theatrical group Shomoy. His witty dialogues in narrating the facts of 40's are interesting. In his acknowledgement to the play, he has said that he modified the original story to show the abuse of religion. Evil-society and immoral leaders often use religion to exploit human beings. Now the question arises whether he has modified the original story to show the importance of human beings rather than that of religion.

Aly Zaker is the guest director as well as the set-designer of the play. He has applied the narrative technique successfully. Few of the theatrical games have been applied as a part of the composition. In case of set-design, he has applied Corneille's conception of empty-space. Justification of applying empty space conception in a realistic designing has not been very convincing.

Thandu Rayhan's light designing was simple but not very effective. One expects better work from this famous designer. Alamgir Hussain has not projected the lights adequately.

The performance of all the artistes has been spontaneous and worth appreciating.