In Karachi: Urdu version of Becket’s play being staged

In a clever and unique endeavour, the Tehrik-e-Niswan has adapted Samuel Beckett’s timeless tragicomedy, Waiting For Godot, into Urdu. The play, which will hit the stage from October 31 (today) at the Arts Council, has not only been translated, but has also been laced with local socio-political humour - that too to great effect.

The play, titled ‘Insha Ka Intazar’, is written and directed by Anwer Jafri and has been modified to some extent in that it will be performed in one act as opposed to the two in Beckett’s original, and that the male duo of Estragon and Vladimir are replaced by a male-female combo of Karmu and Zulekha.

However, the purists can rest assured that the cleverness, nuances, and subtleties of the play remain intact despite the drastic effect of a linguistic change from English to Urdu. The poignancy of the thrust (which Beckett always maintained was for the audience to decipher using their own perception) is not only sustained but, in fact, is emphasised bearing in mind that the local audience will be able to relate to it more given its smartly-incorporated domestic flavour.