By Basim Usmani - Daily Times - Lahore, PakistanFriday, November 30, 2007
Salim Ghouse and his Phoenix Players theatre company performed Troubadour, a mystical monologue inspired by the writings of Mualana Rumi on Thursday at the Alhamra Performing Arts Festival.
With nothing but a wooden staff and shifting stage lighting for ambiance, Ghouse, in a clear Shakespearean cadence began his first story.
“The mad man asked his beloved, why do you always slight me with your words?”
With tears welling up in his eyes, he recited the beloved’s answer: “If you feel slighted by these words, then you are too much in love with yourself.”
With two PhDs in martial arts from China and Japan, Ghouse glided in circles around the stage with grace; a demonstration in despondence from a lover who will never get closer to his beloved.
He spoke of a disillusioned mystic who pleaded with an elder Sufi, “If there is a God, then why haven’t I received answers for all my questions to her?” The Sufi responded that it was the questions that proved the existence of God.
When asked how long he had been studying Rumi, Salim Ghouse replied, “I don’t study Rumi, I am Rumi.”
Ghouse is a multilingual Indian film star, who has starred in movies from 1983 to 1994.
“Theatre is my passion, and when I presented at a dramatics festival in Prague the audience members came up to me and told me the performance was ethereal, that Sufism was nothing like the Islam they’d heard about on the news.”
To audiences in Lahore, his performance seemed no less spellbinding.
[Phoenyx Players official website: http://www.thephoenixplayers.com/].
Ghouse is a multilingual Indian film star, who has starred in movies from 1983 to 1994.
“Theatre is my passion, and when I presented at a dramatics festival in Prague the audience members came up to me and told me the performance was ethereal, that Sufism was nothing like the Islam they’d heard about on the news.”
To audiences in Lahore, his performance seemed no less spellbinding.
[Phoenyx Players official website: http://www.thephoenixplayers.com/].
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