Did Shah Sharahbeel deliver with his comeback play Twins Apart?

A luminous white figure steps on to the stage holding two cradles. Placing the cradles in front of her, she launches into a despondent song and dance, accompanied by a well-synchronised troupe, also glowing in the dark.

This haunting first act hints quite clearly at the backbone of the story, as does the title itself. Twins Apart, it declares, accompanied by an image of two male profiles facing each other. It is evident that the two cradles hold twin babies who, through twists of fate, must get torn apart.

This naturally leads to the conclusion that a story of two separated brothers must be rife with heartbreak, tears and coincidental meetings. Shah Sharahbeel’s latest theatrical play — his comeback after a sabbatical of more than four years — does have all this. But audiences, so easily lured away by their cell phone screens, and accustomed to two-minute YouTube videos rather than 130-minute long plays, don’t always get riveted by melodrama. The seasoned impresario that he is, Sharahbeel knows this. He peppers the melancholy with song, dance, wisecracks and romance, whisking together some good old-fashioned masala to please the audiences.

He manages quite well. Twins Apart is long, but it remains interesting and the credit goes not just to Sharahbeel’s direction but also to the sizzling dance choreography by Shezi and Ghani, the perpetual twists and turns in the story and a very talented ensemble cast, consisting mainly of amateur actors. It has always been Sharahbeel’s custom to take on board new actors and hone them into singing, dancing, acting crackerjacks. His cast does not fail him here.

Shah Sharahbeel’s theatrical comeback after four years, Twins Apart, is bigger and better than his past efforts

The plot revolves round two brothers, separated at birth. The twins’ birth mum is a poor maid, Safia, and while one child is raised by her, the other is raised by her employer, Mariam, a rich woman who is unable to bear children of her own. Mariam convinces Safia to part with a child, and a heartbroken Safia complies, sealing her vow by placing her hand on the Holy Quran. Once the baby is hers, Mariam lives in constant fear that her secret would be revealed, and that Safia would snatch back her son. She connives and plans to ensure that the two brothers never cross paths, and yet they do, again and again. Eesa, the rich brother, and Moosa, the poor one, instantly connect with each other and forge a friendship that lasts over the years. On the occasions that Eesa runs into Safia, who he knows to be his friend’s mum, he feels strangely drawn to her, telling her that she is sweet. A misty-eyed Safia, bound to silence by the promise that she made long ago, kisses him tenderly.

It’s pure filmi fare and there’s a lot of it in Twins Apart. It works simply because the story keeps moving on, never really dragging. Moosa gets married to his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful Noori, and gets crippled by the trials of an impoverished life. Eesa proceeds to carve a career for himself. And, as in all stories revolving round two estranged brothers, they ultimately discover the truth.

Debutante Kanwal Khan, who plays Noori, is very compelling, as are Umer Naru and Faraz Ali who play Eesa and Moosa, respectively. There is also a narrator lurking in the shadows and perpetually surfacing, poetically alluding to the turn of events and singing soulfully. The play, according to Sharahbeel, is originally three hours long and it is because of the narrator, enacted extremely well by Rehan Nazim, that the story manages to move along more quickly.

And yet, tighter editing was required and Sharahbeel realised this. I’m told that the scenes have now been snipped down so that the duration is under two hours. With tickets priced at Rs 2,000 apiece, Sharahbeel probably wants to deliver an experience that is well worth this rather hefty price. Nevertheless, an overlong performance just tends to make one fidgety.

The ticket price, then, is my main crib against Twins Apart. Theatre should essentially be more inclusive, particularly a play as commercial and finely-tuned as this one. Furthermore, with this play, Sharahbeel has departed from a script in English, his usual comfort zone, opting for Urdu instead. It makes the story more impactful, more convincing and, should the ticket prices be lowered, each show could easily run to full houses.

Also, like all of Sharahbeel’s past projects, Twins Apart is a musical in which the music is mostly played out from speakers and not performed live. A live orchestra would certainly add magic. Then again, our auditoriums aren’t acoustically equipped to handle live music. The soundtrack, at least, is catchy, flitting from popular English songs to reinventions of folk melodies and pop.

A sponsor is quite ostensibly on board in this production and there are plenty of references to Pepsi Battle of the Bands in the script. The final scene, in fact, has the show’s logo flashing in euphoric red and blue in the background. It’s a tad irritating — as flagrant sponsorship always tends to be — but it’s still incorporated into the story intelligently.

In fact, Twins Apart is a play that is particularly indicative of Sharahbeel’s intelligence and experience as a director. Inspired by Willy Russel’s classic play, Blood Brothers, the story has been tweaked and tamed to appeal to the desi audience. The plot itself is generic, reminiscent of many past movies, replete with clichés and often predictable, but Sharahbeel has moulded it into something new and entertaining.

The play will be showing at the Karachi Arts Council till March 10, and will then proceed on to shows in Islamabad and Lahore.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, February 24th, 2019