"AVANTI" - The Grand Musical.

In last couple of years, Karachi has seen a wave of change in entertainment genre which the addition of premium Cinema houses, shopping malls, and last but not least the entry of Theatre plays in the category which the people of Karachi have welcomed with open arms.

Myself being one of the ardent fan of theatre, I just could not miss going for the recently put together play by Entertainment Xtra at Arts Council named "Avanti", directed by Mr. Javed Saeedi.

"AVANTI" Theatre Musical

It is amazing to see the amount of natural talent prevailing in our country. The youth of our country has a restless soul and given the outlets to rightfully utilize these abilities ends in yielding remarkable results. Having watched couple of plays put together by NAPA academy students, then there have been plays directed by Shah Sharabeel, but nothing could prepare me for the magic I was about to witness on the night "Avanti" came live on stage. Absolutely riveting performance by each and every player associated with the show. 

The story revolves around a girl who returns to her village to save the only place in the village for the Soulful art "Avanti" that was now left completely abandoned after she had moved to the big city to pursue her dreams and never looked back. Given that the story was an inspiration from the Indi Movie Aaja Nachlay, but that was about it as far as the comparison goes. The performances of the cast blew us away with skillfully choreographed group dances to timely delivered dialogues, right down to the perfectly cued events that would build up rythmetically into a choas and still make complete sense and not loose the audiences attention. The body gestures, expressions were full of energy from the start to the finish. I happened to notice that even while one conversation was the center of attention at a time the other dozen actors on stage would not loose character with the excuse of not being the focus but they continued to proceed with their character self. 

Since the play was whooping 3 hours long! hence there were moments when one would feel the stretch but then again you could always bank on a character being silently hilarious with their gestures and silly actions while continually being in character throughout. 

The most applauded performances of the night were of Saqib Muneer ( as Rana Sahib), Rana Majid ( as Shiela ) and Hashim Imran ( as the "Gajni" policeman ). All in all, it was a must see performance that left me and my husband reminiscing moments from the play for the next couple of days! 

I am tempted to post my favourite moments from the play but then I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't seen the play yet. 

Hats off to the cast of  "Avanti" and specially to Mr. Javed Ahmed Saeedi for putting together such a brilliant performance.