Shahs give Dubai a play to cherish!
One of India’s most talented families, the Shah family came together on stage on Friday and left a lasting impression on Dubai’s theatre lovers with their riveting performances in Riding Madly Off In All Directions.
Naseeruddin, his wife Ratna, and children Heeba, Imaad and Vivaan wowed fans with their impeccable execution of Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock’s short pieces at Ductac, Mall of The Emirates.
Right at the start of the play, Naseeruddin made it clear that this is would not be a laugh-outloud comedy. We, however, felt the play had more wit than the humour because it was all about the jokes of life. The first piece itself being Leacock’s point of view on humour.
Heeba, (Naseeruddin’s daughter) portrayed with aplomb the story of an extremely nervous person trying to open a bank account. In case, if you have hated mathematics all your life, Ratna Pathak ensures you fall in love with the A, B and C’s of the subject.
Brilliant take
Naseeruddin gave a lot of time to his family to show their brilliance on stage before taking over to deliver a captivating monologue on a futuristic sci-fi tale.
The Shahs breathed life into many inanimate things through their short pieces – things that go beyond our thinking. In fact, in Naseeruddin’s act, the actor took us thousands of years into the future to show how things would be if we continued being the way we are.
In the year 3000, his character finds that there are no emotional bonds or no children, no form of communication, everything is mechanical and everyone is cut off from each other. People only want materialistic pleasures of life. Quite thought provoking! Things that annoy Naseeruddin in his present life do not exist in the future and he is shown yearning for his earlier life.
When it comes to performances few star families can match the collective talents of the Shahs, and that’s what made the play a pleasure to watch. We hope to see more of Naseeruddin’s works being staged in Dubai in future.