LARKANA: The 10-day Sindh Theatre Festival, jointly organised by the Karachi and Larkana arts councils in the Z.A. Bhutto open-air theatre here came to a close on Sunday night.
The festival was inaugurated on Sept 18 by Larkana District Council Chairman Aijaz Ahmed Leghari and PTV Managing Director Syed Amjad Shah, along with office-bearers of the Larkana Arts Council and renowned writer, litterateur and poet Dr Ayub Sheikh.
Audience packed the open-theatre on all the 10 days making the festival a big success.
The cast of the last play, Jeenan Kaan Jeeas (To live for those who live), also received great applause from the audience as did those of the nine other plays.
The chief guest at the closing ceremony was PPP Bakrani Taluka President Sardar Tariq Anwar Khan Siyal, who awarded appreciation certificates to Larkana Arts Council’s Vice President Nadeem Akbar Siyal, Secretary Hanif Suhag, Deputy Secretary Aashig Ali Dayo, Finance Secretary Abdul Nabi Sario, Fine Arts Chairmen Ayub Gad and Nadeem Akhtar Soomro.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Sardar Siyal called the Larkana Arts Council ‘a priceless gift’ from the PPP leadership to Larkanaites. ‘In this age of tension and turmoil, the people of Larkana have been offered the splendid solace of drama, storytelling and liter-ary gatherings, for which no amount of praise is enough,’ he remarked.
He pledged that he would strive hard for the council’s advancement and play his role in securing adequate funds from the provincial government for this institution.
Secretary Mohammad Hanif Suhag expressed his satisfaction over the culture department’s kind affection with the Larkana Arts Council ‘after two years of neglect’.
He appealed to Sardar Tariq Siyal to help get funds for the council released by the culture minister so as to enable it to do still better work.
The last play, written by Afaq Bashir Chano and directed by Sattar Lar, featured Amjad Gul Soomro, Aashig Dayo, Reema Naz, Javed Shaikh, Zeb Sindhi and others, who gave a fine display of their talent.
The play tells the story of a family in which the elder brother offers a great sacrifice for his younger brother’s higher education. He never marries and builds a splendid bungalow with the money he receives as his retirement dues. He begs his brother to marry the girl to whom he was betrothed, but the younger brother refuses and, instead, contracts a love marriage with a classmate.
At his wife’s urging, the younger brother gets the bungalow transferred to himself and, again at her behest, he ejects the elder brother from the bungalow.
Heartbroken, the elder brother dies of a cardiac arrest. When his nephew shames the younger brother over what he did to his brother, the younger brother weeps and wails in grief.