LAHORE - A four-day All Pakistan Inter-University Drama Festival 2018 began Tuesday at the Government College University Lahore. The university’s Dramatics Club opened the festival with its Urdu play “Roshni Ka Safar”, which was about the divine justice for people who got involved in malpractice.

The dramatics club of top fifteen universities of the country, including Punjab University, Kinnaird College, LUMS, UET Lahore, BZU Multan and Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, are scheduled to stage dramas at the festival on the topics ranging from corruption to tolerance to women empowerment.

The GCUDC presented total four plays on the festival’s first day which included an English play, The Intruder, which was about the unwelcomed guest i.e. the death, which crept into houses. They also staged a Punjabi play, ‘Kankaan Laamiyan’, which represented the plight of women in our society.

The Club also paid tribute to eminent dramatist Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj by staging his play ‘Goongi Joru’. This is a classic comedy of manner and highlights man’s basic nature that is insatiable.

Addressing the inaugural address, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah highlighted GCU’s ages old tradition of staging intellectually stimulating plays, saying that theatre was not only meant for entertainment, rather it had more important function i.e. to reform the society. He hoped all universities should play vital role for reviving culture of quality theatre in the country. Prof Shah also shared the 130 years old history GC Dramatics Club, saying that it had produced legendary thespians and playwrights like Rafi Peer, Imtiaz Ali Taj, Zia Mohyeuddin, Shoaib Hashmi, Naeem Tahir, Qayum Jojo, Asghar Nadeem Syed, among others.