LAHORE: The commercial theatre has been continuing on the premises of the Lahore Arts Council (LAC) for years now; however, recent incidents of vulgarity in two commercial plays staged at Alhamra has become quite embarrassing for the council. Dare-bare dances and racy dialogues in these stage plays have made things quite disturbing for the art council high-ups.

Two stage dancers, Shama Rana who performed in the play Chaand Ki Chandni and Payal Chaudhry who worked in the play Naukar Wohti Da, have been banned for making unethical gestures during the plays at Alhamra.

Minister for Information and Culture Amir Mir took action and issued orders to ban both the dancers from performing across Punjab as the videos of both the dancers got viral on social media.

LAC Executive Director Saleem Sagar told Dawn he had issued the orders of banning the producers and the two dancers and they could not perform on the Alhamra premises or stage plays there.

Province-wide ban imposed on two actresses on charge of obscenity

Minister Amir Mir told Dawn that he had directed the Punjab Council of the Arts to be vigilant regarding commercial theatre in the province and form five teams at all its 12 regional offices to monitor vulgarity at such theatres. Saying that both the dancers had been banned all over Punjab, he said further action would also be taken and it would be shared with the media. He hinted at introducing stricter laws to curb vulgarity at commercial theatre.

Many parallel theatre folks believe that the LAC is not the right place to stage commercial theatre and the council should come up with its own productions so that meaningful and quality theatre could be produced.

The commercial theatre that has been taking place for the last many years on the premises of Lahore Arts Council (LAC) at the Alhamra Art Centre, The Mall and the Alhamra Cultural Complex in the past too and it has sparked debates both at the private and the government level that how the premier cultural body like the LAC is not doing its own productions and how it has rented out its halls to stage the low-brow theatre. Former Secretary Information and Culture Raja Jahangir was adamant in 2021 to put an end to this commercial theatre at Alhamra because the LAC was not meant for such activities. But things just could not materialise.

Once this commercial theatre activity is over, the LAC could invite cultural bodies, the non-government organisations (NGOs) working on the art and culture, parallel theatre groups, colleges and universities to stage quality plays at Alhamra on a no-profit-no-loss basis.

The Alhamra Halls should not be rented out for merely money but it wants qualitative and socially meaningful theatre performed under the umbrella of the council.

A number of art enthusiasts, literary folks and other stakeholders have demanded for many times to move out commercial theatre from the council’s premises and bring socially meaningful and quality theatre but the ‘show is still on’.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2023