an a single therapy session carry the weight of human existence, divine abandonment and the fragile geometry of faith? To Be Was a Mistake boldly attempts to find that out, delivering a polarising, high-stakes psychological drama that deliberately fractures the boundary between the sacred and the profane.

A joint presentation of Scatter Theatre and DramaEd, the play was recently staged for two consecutive nights at the intimate Olomopolo Media in Lahore. Directed by Farooq Pasha, the play stars Hassan Raza and Hafsah Raza in an intense, two-hander setup. The production marks a daring addition to the city’s alternative theatre scene, pushing the audience well past their comfort zones into deep theological and psychological waters.

The narrative setup is deceptively straightforward: Ella (Hafsah Raza), a clinical psychologist grappling with the emotional weight of raising an autistic son, welcomes a mysterious new patient (Hassan Raza) into her office. The unnamed patient, with stalker tendencies and fiercely manipulative rebuttals, refuses to give his name or parental lineage. The session quickly derails from standard clinical analysis into a cosmic trial when the patient claims to be God Himself. What follows is a tense, claustrophobic battle of wits, where Ella’s self-proclaimed atheism is pitted against a visitor who weaponises her deepest insecurities, culminating in a jaw-dropping final twist that recontextualises the human-divine relationship.

Director Pasha opened the evening with a warning: watch until the very end before passing judgment. Given the inherently controversial nature of a character claiming to be God, this disclaimer was not a mere formality, but rather an act of survival. The play deliberately walks the razor’s edge, using the patient’s manipulative, seemingly flawed demeanour as a brilliant allegory for how religious narratives are sometimes inflated and weaponised to harm others.

The production shone in its pacing, breaking the heavy theological tension with sharp, witty jokes targeting standard psychology stereotypes. But the core of the play lay in its dense symbolism and layered dialogue. When the patient asks Ella to “change his mind,” it is an unmistakable allegory for dua (supplication), the desperate human attempt to alter the Divine Decree. Ella’s realisation that she is “too preoccupied with her own anger” to feel compassion mirrors humanity’s tendency towards ungratefulness, looking at the temporary nature of the world, and seeing only chaos.

The dialogue sparks during the climax when Ella, representing human misunderstanding, challenges the patient: “Why haven’t you destroyed me yet if you have all this power?” She assumes life is a chaotic improvisation, missing the underlying reality of qadr (predestination).

Ultimately, the play argues that humans are dangerously sick with power and inherently need God.

The cracks in the patient’s façade — particularly his flawed explanation of Satan’s influence — subtly highlight that this cosmic debate works precisely because the concept of the Hereafter is absent from the dialogue. Without accountability beyond this life, human existence seems pointless. Ella cannot fully sever her ties to the Divine, acknowledging that she felt His presence in her deepest grief and refrained from ending her life.

Ultimately, the play argues that humans are dangerously sick with power and inherently need God. When Ella confesses her wrongdoings, the patient’s simple response, “Let’s not exaggerate,” beautifully underscores the profound ease of Divine forgiveness.

To Be Was a Mistake turned out to be powerhouse theatre. Hafsah Raza delivered an emotionally raw performance as Ella; her background acting, particularly her moments of weeping, grounded the play’s heavy abstractions in visceral human pain.

Opposite her, Hassan Raza was a revelation. His monologues were easily the highlight of the show; delivered with a commanding, high-energy presence that held the audience captive even during the most polarising theological arguments.

The play is intentionally ambiguous and not for cheap shock value. The ambiguity drives its narrative to extremes because it recognises a fundamental truth about human nature: we are too stubborn to understand the gravity of our relationship with the Divine unless it is thrown into an uncompromising spotlight. The ultimate twist — that the patient was merely an actor, yet Ella’s autistic son inexplicably begins to speak right after the encounter — flawlessly drives home the play’s concluding thesis. Nothing is a coincidence, everything happens because of Divine inspiration, and in the end, humanity will always find itself in desperate need of God.

Nadia Ahmed Uqaili is a content strategist with over five years of global agency experience. She also writes short fiction on Substack. She can be reached at [email protected]