Rehan Ansari: Unburdened

Director: Viktorie Čermáková
Scene: Jan Pfeiffer
Actors: Ondřej Novák, Daniela Voráčková  

MeetFactory Gallery in collaboration with the MeetFactory Theatre are presenting a stage reading of Rehan Ansari´s play Unburdened. The show will be a part of an exhibition of visual and performance artworks by New York-based artists titled Enacting Stillness at MeetFactory Gallery. 

Unburdened is set in the time around President Obama's inauguration when a journalist from Toronto, goes to Karachi where he becomes consumed with our inability to truly comprehend what it is to live inside a war. He glimpses our enemy's point of view: We see an argument for militancy that has a global audience. We observe the protagonist's struggles through his partner's eyes as he feverishly communicates with her over the phone and Skype. In Karachi he stays with Attiya and Saad, his elderly aunt and uncle who have lived with a terrible secret over the course of their 60-year relationship that began amidst the Partition of India.

Unburdened was commissioned by CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, New York for their Art of War Festival. It has had a three day presentation at Alt Theatre in Buffalo in 2010. Workshops were supported by the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council. It had a reading at the Asia Society for their festival called Creative Voices from the World of Islam in 2012.  

Rehan Ansari is a Brooklyn-based writer. A Karachi native and a graduate of Vassar College, Rehan was a working journalist in New York during 9/11 and in Mumbai during the attacks in 2008. He travelled to Pakistan in the aftermath of both, and Unburdened is based on his experiences. Rehan's work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Globe & Mail, and as a columnist for Mid-day Mumbai. He has been Editor Independent Press Association-New York, and Foreign Editor Daily News & Analysis in Mumbai. His play Damme This is the Oriental Scene for You! (adapted from the writings of G.V. Desani) had a three-week run at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. He is at work on a novel.

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