In the dark, full-beyond-capacity hall of The Colony in Lahore, three traditionally attired kathak dancers perform on stage. Behind them, a timeline runs backward by year, from the present 2022 and stops at 1977. That’s when doors open, a saxophone blares and cabaret dancers take over the stage. The audience is transported to Club Kolachi, which is supposed to be located on Seaview in the Karachi of mid-1977.

Kolachi is a musical theatre production, named after the club it revolves around and directed by Saad Sheikh. Running for four days to full houses, the thoroughly entertaining show is a homage to the modern, vivacious cultural hub that Pakistan once was and has since been lost to intolerance, extremism and censorship. The kathak at the beginning points at what’s still left of the region’s culture in terms of dance and music.

The illuminated ‘Kolachi’ at the back of the set says the imaginary club was established in 1951 and, in the context of the story, is where cabaret performers — clad in blingy, sparkly dresses, wearing headbands and sporting hairdos that were all the rage back then — swing and shake to jazzy songs. The emcee is a drag artist who also adds some humour to the bilingual (Urdu and English), but primarily English, production.

In the world of these performers, there’s love and romance, jealousy and competition, passion and emotion, lots of laughter and some talk of diversity, acceptability and adapting.

The thoroughly entertaining musical show Kolachi is a homage to the vivacious cultural hub that Pakistan once was and which has since been lost to intolerance, extremism and censorship

It all seems to be going great, until the fateful day of July 5, 1977 when Z.A. Bhutto is deposed as the prime minister of the country and Gen Ziaul Haq imposes martial law. Consequently, there’s a string of restrictions, and clubs, song and dance are banned. It’s important to point out that, while this may be the premise of this fantasy show, in actual fact, Karachi’s nightclubs and bars disappeared overnight when a prohibition order was enacted in April 1977 by Mr Bhutto himself, as an attempt to placate religious conservatives who had risen up in opposition to him. In any case, irrespective of this major divergence from real history, in the context of the show, these events lead to a struggle to save Kolachi from shutting down, for which the owner even ends up sacrificing his life. His family and the club’s artists then take on the mantle.

While the dictatorial regime deems dancers mirasis [low-caste minstrels] and clubs kanjarkhanas [brothels], the performers insist they’re as much a part of the system as the authorities are, and say they will cover up but when they want and not when they’re asked to. In one sequence, Azra, a sari-clad brothel madam from Lahore, intervenes and saves a detained performer through her connections in the government; she’s beautiful, sensuous, witty, but strong and assertive and has her ways of getting things done.

As Kolachi falls, its performers and owners band together and, in an emotional, moving, yet tragic concluding segment, hack the state broadcaster to convey to the country what the entire community is going through.

A slideshow plays at the end as a tribute to the many artists who lost livelihoods after the restrictions. One of them is famed classical dancer Zareen Panna, whom the production is dedicated to. Panna has performed in front of dignitaries such as Bhutto, Ayub Khan and Queen Elizabeth II, but suddenly her art was banned despite the fact that she had been dancing since six years of age. The slideshow also displays pictures published by the now-discontinued Herald magazine, depicting the life and fashion of Karachi of the 1970s, movie posters of the time, music and dance shows at clubs and how it all came to an end.

The dazzling retro costumes capturing the cabaret scene of the era are designed by Hashim Ali, who is also responsible for the spectacular set, besides playing the owner of club Kolachi. All the choreographers — Fatima Amjad, Wajiha Wasti, Faizan Batalvi, Raja Wasay (who also plays the drag artist) and Taimoor Nizamani — most of whom were part of the cast as well, deserve a special mention for getting the cabaret just right and coming up with the many dance sequences, whether eastern classical or jazz, which the entire show is peppered with. Emotion or comedy, drama or passion, the actors conveyed each sentiment so persuasively that the audience remained engrossed and overwhelmed.

Hira Asim, who plays the saucy Ruby — the main performer at Club Kolachi — told Icon after the finale that she’s done musicals that did not entail dialogues, danced in music videos and theatre productions, but never acted on stage before. But who’d believe her after the performance she delivered in Kolachi.

“Delivering dialogues while dancing takes a lot of stamina and practice,” she said. “So it was challenging, but a lot of fun. I performed on stage after five years, and Kolachi was a beautiful experience. It took us just three weeks to get to this point, so I’m really emotional. I was part of the original Kolachi that was staged in 2016 but that was just a musical with no dialogues. This was a completely new experience.”

Fatima Amjad, one of the choreographers who also plays Azra, is mostly self-taught but has been training for a year and a half in dance online with Indian teachers, while also coaching girls in semi-classical dance. She directed her own musical production last year and has been acting on stage since she was in school. She was equally enthused by the production.

“Kolachi is close to my heart, it was an amazing experience,” she said. “It must have been far more difficult for those doing cabaret because there were a lot of sequences, and even though I have a smaller sequence, it did take me a lot of legwork to get it right and my students helped me out.”

She says she connects deeply with the theme of the show. Amjad says, “I wanted to be a part of Kolachi so bad because I’m fighting the fight [the show] was talking about, and so are my girls, as half of their families don’t know they dance. My father or family don’t know I dance, only my brothers do.”

Director Saad Sheikh says despite the four-day showcase coming to an end, he’s not relieved yet because the message needs to be delivered across many cities. The production was supposed to head to the city it’s based in — Karachi — but was staged again in Lahore for two nights on June 11 and 12, reportedly on popular demand.

“I only think about one visual and build a play around it. Having worked with artists in cities like Karachi, Beirut and Damascus, it breaks my heart to see what they’re going through. A word in Hebrew entails that you tend to empathise with the memory that you’ve never lived, so I relate to this a lot.”

Saad claims to have met and talked to a lot of people for his research into the show, including the Goan Christians of Karachi, many of whom lost their livelihoods when the clubs and pubs shut down. The show, he says, is “very patriotic” as much as someone would like to believe otherwise.

While ensuring an hour-and-a-half of pure entertainment, Kolachi is also attempting to make a definite political statement.

Published in Dawn, ICON, June 19th, 2022