Characters shine despite over-ambitious play
Acha Bacha
1/2 (out of 4) Written by Bilal Baig, directed by Brendan Healy. Until Feb. 18 at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave. Passemuraille.ca and 416-504-7529.
Bilal Baig’s debut play opens with a striking scene: the young PakistaniCanadian man Zaya (Qasim Khan) and his genderqueer partner Salim (Matt Nethersole) engaged in an intimate act.
Played on a bare stage framed by a lush, golden-brown curtain and bathed in warm light (set and costume design by Joanna Yu, lighting by C.J. Astronomo) their encounter is beautiful, intense and sexy — and then, unexpectedly interrupted by Maulana (Omar Alex Khan), an older man wearing a shalwar kameez, whom Zaya sees but Salim does not.
This introduces Zaya’s struggle, caught between the present and future he desires with Salim, but haunted by childhood trauma involving Maulana, who taught Islamiyat — religious classes — in his Mississauga basement until, on the day after Eid two decades ago, he suddenly shut the mosque down and moved his family to Kitchener.
The play (a co-production between Theatre Passe Muraille and Buddies in Bad Times) seems to be struggling between multiple dramaturgical impulses: the revelation-of-mystery structure about what happened between Maulana and Zaya that continues to torment the younger man, and the exploration and celebration of Zaya and Salim’s life experiences as they navigate their Muslim faith and queer identities. The theme that is meant to hold this all together is filial responsibility (“acha bacha” means “good child” in Urdu) but the structure of this 80-minute play can’t fully contain all the directions in which Bilal’s story heads.
Somewhat awkward expositional dialogue between Zaid and Salim establishes the dramatic situation: Salim is heading out that night on a long pilgrimage with their mother (the play uses gender-neutral pronouns for Salim) and before that, the lovers are to spend the day together.
But Zaya’s Ma (Ellora Patnaik) suffers a minor injury, and while visiting her at the hospital, Zaya runs into Maulana’s son Mubeen (Shelly Antony) — an encounter that further stirs up the troubled past. Throughout, flashback scenes mingle with the present, signalled by lighting changes and effective musical and soundeffect underscoring (design by Richard Feren).
The time constraint of Salim’s impending departure never stops feeling like a contrivance, and trivial compared to the serious issues Baig puts on the table.
Salim and Zaid speak mainly English but sometimes slip Urdu words in, and a lot of Ma’s dialogue is in Urdu. Most of what they’re saying becomes clear through context and inference, but as an English speaker, I always had the sense of being slightly outside these communications — which seems purposeful and part of the point Baig is making about living between worlds, but which may, for some, move the play from complexity to confusion.
It’s on the level of characterization that the play and production shine. Each one of Baig’s five characters is multi-faceted and credible, and under Brendan Healy’s precise direction the actors bring them to life impressively. They represent individual and community experiences I had not seen on the stage of a major Toronto theatre before, and wanted to know more about.
Baig has two more productions in development at the Factory Theatre and Buddies in Bad Times, and it will be exciting to see what comes next from this intriguing new voice.