Not So Funny

DECEMBER 2004 - These are heady days in Lahore. The city, after a brief shower, has been able to shake off the blanket of smog and dust that had suffocated it. Instead, winter has finally arrived with a crisp and cold breeze that by late evening is positively chilly and things like hot coffee are suddenly very welcome. Those living in Lahore or visiting it have quite a choice from a whole lot of cultural activities that include painting exhibitions, music, theatre, puppet shows all taking place at the international festival that’s been playing out at the cultural complex in Gaddafi Stadium.

Watching a two-man German team the other night, called the Wall Street Theatre, was quite a refreshing experience. Supported by a dusty, sorry-looking small suitcase, four locally made upright chairs and a small, tatty carpet, the two actors who are pretty good gymnasts in their own right, had the audience in stitches as they effortlessly played out their routine. Partly as per a well-rehearsed script and a generous mixture of one-liners and off the cuff remarks directly made at and with the audience, they proved that there is little more enjoyable than good comedy when done well. Those in the audience who, like all Pakistani audiences are these days, were either constantly arriving or departing and held captives by their mobiles which played out brash jingles, nursery rhymes or frenetic and hideous tunes, were not spared by the two sharp actors. With perfectly timed lines, they poked fun at these people, adding to their routine and also subtly letting us know that it was bad behaviour to boot. When a mobile rang out in the middle of their performance, they stopped and amid hoots of laughter asked the gent to attend to the call. Of course he was embarrassed but while the crowd had a good laugh at his expense, the two actors didn’t let him off the hook. I didn’t hear that mobile ring again that evening. When another man decided to walk out right in the middle of another routine they were going through, they stopped and asked him if he had already had enough, was he coming back or only going to the bathroom. It was downright hilarious and the embarrassed man made a quick exit before he could be ridiculed a little more. The crowd’s slow and indifferent reaction to the performance – a disease that is well spread amongst our crowds at all such events, was not spared. The two actors announced right at the start when the Lahore crowd had given them a half-baked applause, that they had been told the Lahoris were just a bit slow in the head and it took them about five minutes to get the joke, which is why they clapped so long after it was due. The Lahoris didn’t lag behind after that dig!

They were obviously not out to teach us good theatre manners but merely pointing out what is right and what is not right while at the same time, adding to their performance. In that sense, this fast, spontaneous involvement with the audience won the crowd over and added to everyone’s enjoyment. While they did some amazingly difficult stunts with relative indifference and casual ease, the elements of good comedy, the swift repartee, the excellent timing so crucial to comedy, was maintained all along and made the 45-minute non-stop show even more enjoyable. It was a treat and the full house thoroughly enjoyed it. After it was over, some of us were thinking about how far down our own sense of fun has plunged and if the local film or theatre scene is an indicator, the plunge is beyond hope. Barring a few actors who can still pull off great comedy – and they are even less than all the promises Gen. Musharaff made and never kept, the rest is pathetic. In the theatres or whatever it is that we call them, the humour on show is enough to drive you to tears. Falling down, tripping, slapping or hideously over-acting is regarded as great comedy. One-liners repeated throughout the show is another achievement which is supposed to represent fine comedy. The actors, with bad lines, are victims of even worse direction and entries and exits are poorly timed leaving the audience other than the moronic ones, in a state of depression and total indifference. Most of the ‘jokes’ are at the expense of another and most jokes are about or on women, which is why Pakistan’s premier comedian, our answer to John Cleese, the man who does three shows a night, Omar Shariff cannot get going unless he has disgusting things to say about women. Perhaps some of the male chauvinistic pigs who are usually found in large numbers at his shows find this titillating – if you will excuse the line, but it leaves the ones with any taste feeling angry. As for the women, it would do Mr. Shariff a world of good – then again, maybe not, were he to hear what they think of his views. Clearly, this is a man who is getting back at the women for whatever they have done (or not done) to him. However, while he is perfectly entitled to his mind-warp on this subject, it is downright sexist, absurd and annoying. It is everything, but it is not funny. This however, is our idea of comedy so Mr. Shariff is a busy man and makes a lot of money. For most organizers, there cannot be a show without him but as for the quality of his humour, the less said the better. Others, like Maqsood Anwar, quite witty at times, has always had the effect on me - at least, of a wet sop slapped into your face. Not enjoyable at all. His dead pan delivery does work now and then, particularly when he is taking the mickey out of those in power, but while he stands out in a gallery of non-funny men pretending to be funny, I have never had the pleasure of rolling off the sofa when he is around. The same for Mr. Moin Akhtar of the many faces and many voices.

Why is it that we cannot produce good comedy? Is it that as a people we find little that is funny in life? Can it not be argued that when things are so bad, it makes all the more sense to have good comedy? Is it that we can only laugh at others but never at ourselves, that we tend to take ourselves far too seriously at all times? Is it that most of us are pompous and self-righteous and if the joke is on us, quite unable to bear it with good grace? Being no expert on comedy, I cannot really say, but if our sense of humour is at the lowest levels, is it because that is the only kind of humour we can tolerate? Experts may be able to explain it but what is difficult to understand is that generally speaking – a dangerous word as most Pakistanis will now testify after 50 years and more, the element of seeing the funny side of things, the spontaneity of the instant one-liner delivered with perfect timing, is not alien to our people. When Benazir drew mammoth crowds on her triumphant entry into Lahore in 1986 and the ‘plain-clothes’ intelligence geeks mingled in the crowds with their walkie-talkies feeding lies to their minders, amidst crackling static noises emanating from their devices, one bored Lahori tapped the geek and said, “Kinnay out hoy nay?” or the time when two Lahoris wandered into the lane where Allama Iqbal’s home stands perilously poised to fall, and asked where it was, the skeptical Sialkoti answered with a perfect question, “Why? Have you come to pull it down?”. This is great comedy, the perfect one-liner, delivered with aplomb, but where does it go when it is acted out on television or in cinema and theatre? Why is it that in the end, all our built-in humour and the gift of being slightly skeptical, is replaced by slapstick, farce and painful theatrics that are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator – that we all know is the last place where quality can ever be found. One lives on in hope !