‘Tumhari Shehnaz’ staged on World Theatre Day

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 28

Yuvaa Theatre Jalandhar celebrated World Theatre Day at KL Saigal Memorial with its new offering, “Tumhari Shehnaz”, which is an adaptation and translation of A Gurney’s popular play “Love Letters”.

The play takes a nostalgic dive into the lost art of writing letters through a heartwarming story of two friends who keep writing letters to each other as they trace the trajectories of their respective lives. Shehnaz is a rich brat from a broken home. She is friends with Avinash from Grade 4th since school days. Avinash is a studious Bengali boy, who has a crush at first sight on Shehnaz.

Shehnaz is a passionate artistic young girl, who is lost in a world of extravagant richess, divorced parents and foster families. In the midst of this chaos, their letters to each other make Avinash an anchor in her life, a friend. However, both, Avinash and Shehnaz fail to realise the gravity and complexity of their relationship as they drift away from each other time and again and yet find a way back. Shehnaz gets married. Gets divorced. Becomes a successful artist but a broken soul.

Avinash becomes a lawyer in the US but returns to become a politician and diplomat. He has a complete family. Shehnaz loses custody of her children too. Yet both keep exchanging letters till Shehnaz falls terminally ill and dies. It’s only then that Avinash confesses his love for her in a last letter.

The format of the play, directed by Ankur Sharma of Yuvaa Theatre, is simple as an aged Shehnaz and aged Avinash sit on the stage reading out their letters written to each other over 35 or so years. On stage were Ankur Sharma as Avinash and Dolly Ohri as Shehnaz.

The play was a tribute to Vikram Thakur, one of the founding members of Yuvaa Theatre who tragically passed away recently. Vikram who was currently employed in the education sector was a founding member and a valuable ally of theatre in Jalandhar who received a teary send off from the theatre fraternity in Jalandhar.

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