KARACHI: It is always a difficult task to make a social commentary through a stage production about relevant contemporary issues by trying to tickle the audience’s funny bones. It is a hit-or-miss kind of an effort because if not done in a professional, all-based covered style, it may trivialise the subject matter. A play titled Are You Lovin’ It put up by a Japanese theatre group called Gumbo, and directed by Kayo Tamura, on Saturday evening at the Arts Council of Pakistan was an amusing little show aimed at highlighting the bad effects of western culture on eastern civilisation.

As can be guessed, perhaps not easily, the title of the play hints at a famous fast food restaurant whose name was altered in the story to a similar sounding phrase. It all begins when a girl (Nono Miyasaka) is seen promoting the fast food chain to the audience. In comes a suited businessman (Ryo Nishihara) who introduces himself in no unclear terms as someone who may have lost his family but not his business. He distributes his business card among members of the audience.

By this time, it becomes evident that the play, told through zany song-and-dance seque­nces and exchange of lines, is a commentary on American culture and its pervasiveness in the world. The third and last character that joins the cast on stage is that of a mother (Kenichi Mabuchi) who is pushing a pram with a baby in it. The focus, it’s reemphasised, is American culture. A character says that by eating [their burgers] we are controlled by the US.

Japanese theatre group stages Are You Lovin’ It as part of Arts Council’s World Culture Festival

As the story progresses the image of former US president Donald Trump also comes up and after making a point the girl asks the attendees in the council’s auditorium if they like the politician. Once driving their point home, the cast urges the audience members to throw anything that they deem unnecessary (in the shape of a ball) into a big basket. The audience obliges. One says ‘jealousy’ is unnecessary for her, the other says it’s ‘money’ for him.

Are You Lovin It has clear intentions; it makes no bones about what’s happening in the world. The technique that the theatre group adopts to put its message across is more of a tableaux-like endeavour. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it keeps the seriousness of the topic in the non-serious domain. Again, nothing wrong with that.

The play was part of the council’s ongoing World Culture Festival.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2024