KARACHI, Aug 23: Existential angst, unrequited love and forgotten hope are some of the themes running through ‘Habib Mamoon,’ which opens today (Friday) for public viewing at the Karachi Arts Council.

Adapted into Urdu by Zahida Zaidi from Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s play ‘Uncle Vanya,’ the play has been set in the pre-second world war period and given the subcontinent’s feudal backdrop.

Presented by veteran impresario Zia Mohyeddin, the star studded cast includes Talat Hussain, Rahat Kazmi and Arshad Mahmud, who are also faculty members of the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA). Television actors Zaheen Tahira, Nyla Jaffry and Jahanara Hai, NAPA faculty member Anjum Ayaz and NAPA student Aymen Ali complete the eight member troupe.

In a special press preview held on Thursday evening, the melancholic mood of Chekhov’s play lost nothing in translation. Mr Hussain’s performance of the sarcastic and woeful protagonist Habib Mamoon was the highlight of the evening. His exquisite dialogue delivery and gestures almost overshadowed the other acts.

There’s no one theme to the play. As in a painting, different people will find different views in the same picture. The one subject underlining the pain of all characters is the feeling of a life spent unfulfilled and without purpose or direction.

The story revolves around the anguish of Habib Mamoo, who has lived the better part of his life serving his academically successful brother-in-law, Professor Kaleem, played by Mr Mahmud. Kaleem is an old man who keeps himself busy night and day reading and writing books. His pretty and young second wife Durdana, played by a final year student at the academy Aymen, is the object of every man’s affection in the household. The professor’s first wife was Habib’s sister who had died a long time ago. Mr Kazmi as Dr Salman is a humanist and the intellectual who has spent his life looking after the sick and poor in the country town. He too is enchanted by the charms of the professor’s wife but Durdana, compelled by her own orthodox believes on morality, struggles to keep herself away from the doctor, though she admits that she does have a special liking for him. Habib, a single man, is furiously jealous of his brother-in-law’s luck in love and is hopelessly besotted with his wife but Durdana pays no heed to him. The professor’s daughter Saleema, played just like it was meant to be in the original by Nyla Jaffry, is in love with the doctor but is unable to express her feelings for him.

The audience will find it captivating that the many twists and turns in the plot would actually echo their own sentiments. In one scene, where Mr Kazmi is at his best in a monologue, Dr Salman expresses deep concern about mankind’s careless annihilation of its natural surroundings and bemoans the fact that people today are more interested in destroying rather than creating harmony in the world.

Could it be that the destruction wrought all around us today is somewhat a mirror image of our own chaotic lives? Perhaps the electrocutions, traffic jams, power breakdowns, damage to marine and forest life is a reflection of our own lethargy, drudgery and regretful muses over what could have been.

A special mention must be made of the meticulously-designed set that gelled in wonderfully with the scenes of the four-act play.

The tragicomedy will provide viewers with ample food for thought and unhappy introspections of our lives and times.

The play will be performed for ten days from August 24 to September 2. Front row tickets are priced at Rs1,500 while seats at the rear of the auditorium are available for Rs800 per head at selected outlets. A part of the show proceedings will be given in aid to a local NGO, The Citizens Foundation, who have sponsored the event.