November 19, Rehan Ansari: Unburdened
Saturday, November 19, 2016. From 6 to 8pm.RSVP: media@sdrubin.org
Rehan Ansari, Unburdened, 2010-2016. [image description: there are four images in a grid, each has black bands on the top and bottom, and each has a line of text with an actor reading a play, top left there is a man sitting reading “I saw Delhi seek refuge at the camps; top right a woman stands and reads “when we went to Karachi from Dehli”; bottom left a man asked a seated woman “what is a muslim”; bottom right a man and a woman are at the top of a stepped stage standing and saying “we have become rolling stones.”]
Rehan Ansari, Unburdened, 2010-2016
The 8th Floor will present a staged reading of Rehan Ansari´s play Unburdened, which is featured in Enacting Stillness as an installation of performance ephemera. The play is set in the time around President Obama’s first inauguration. A journalist from Toronto travels to Karachi, where he becomes consumed with our inability to truly comprehend what it is to live inside a war. He glimpses the 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 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.
To read a copy of Unburdened, please click here.
Bio
Rehan Ansari is a Brooklyn-based writer. Born in Karachi and a graduate of Vassar College, Ansari was a working journalist in New York during 9/11 and in Mumbai during the attacks in 2008. He traveled to Pakistan in the aftermath of both and Unburdened is based on his experiences. His work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Globe & Mail, and as a weekly columnist for Mid-day Mumbai. He has been Editor Independent Press Association-New York and Foreign Editor Daily News & Analysis in Mumbai. Ansari’s 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.