adawa, a drama directed by Salman Sirhindi and written by Tahir Nazir, premiered last week. The eagerly awaited play stars Omer Shahzad, Ammara Malik and Aiza Awan in lead roles. Among others, the supporting cast includes Shabbir Jan, Komail Anam and Fareeda Shabbir.

The story opens with the dynamic shared between two sisters, Novaira and Noor. Ammara stars as Novaira, the elder sister; Aiza plays Noor, the younger one. Novaira works for a company while Noor is a student at a medical college.

Their father is a firm believer in marrying children within the family. When his brother’s son Aaliyan expresses his desire to marry Novaira, he has no objection. However, Aaliyan’s sister was rejected by Novaira’s brother so she is dead against the match. This had caused a rift between the two brothers.

Aaliyan is quite smitten with Novaira; however, she does not reciprocate his feelings. She is romantically involved with a colleague Aahil and is hell bent on marrying him. She believes that her first cousin, Aaliyan is no match for her. He is not even a graduate. She sees him as good for nothing. Besides, he has serious anger issues. She is far more educated than him. However, her father, as already mentioned, is determined to have her marry within the family.

But then, his wife and son reason with him and he agrees to meet Aahil who turns out to be a complete loser. He misbehaves with Novaira’s father and brother and they throw him out. But before they can speak to Novaira about this incident, Aahil cooks up a false story and tells her that they insulted him and threw him out.

Noor tries to knock some sense into Novaira, so to speak, but the girl stands firm in her resolve. In the end, Novaira flees on the wedding day. Her father, in an attempt to salvage the situation, marries Noor off to Aaliyan. She has already been portrayed as an extremely obedient daughter and is ready to forgo her love for the sake of family honour.

Although Noor, herself, is romantically involved with another cousin, Komail, played by Komail Anam, who reciprocates her feelings, she agrees to marry Aaliyan at the behest of her father.

Will Noor and Aliyan manage to make a success of their marriage? What does fate have in store for Novaira, who left her family for a complete loser? Hopefully, these questions will be answered as the play progresses.

The script is extremely clichéd. This story has been seen on the small screen a million times before. The acting is also extremely mediocre. Most of the characters look like cardboard cutouts as they have not been fleshed out properly. The three main leads are passable; the supporting cast is strictly average and is let down by a weak plot and a shoddy script.

With productions like Case No 9 and Jama Taqseem raising the bar even higher, run-of-the-mill productions like Madawa are an insult to the viewers’ intelligence. The regurgitated script with one-dimensional characters, stereotypical dialogues and a below average screenplay, is an utter disappointment. It’s a shame that such plays still manage to find takers.

Nothing much to write home about, this play is yet another mediocre production with superficial and stereotypical characters, predictable dialogue and a script that is highly predictable and unoriginal; a complete and utter letdown.

Verdict: Can be safely given a miss.

The writer, an educationist, can be reached at [email protected].