Rehan Ansari: Unburdened

The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation will present a staged reading of Rehan Ansari´s play Unburdened, which is featured in Enacting Stillness as an installation of performance ephemera at The 8th Floor. 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.

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.