The play Alaa Afsar which was showcased at Shilpgram’s Darpan Auditorium on Sunday evening has bluntly criticized corruption and politics. Performed by the artists belonging to Allahabad, the play is based on the Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General and written by famous theater artist Mudrakshas (1977). The play was directed by Atmajeet Singh.

The play depicts the story of a town named Chitpur, where most of the top officials of Chitpur including chairman, doctor, postmaster, head master and police officers are corrupt. One fine day, they receive information about a senior administrative officer who is appointed to investigate corruption in Chitpur.

During this time, the Chairman of the town misunderstands an unemployed young man staying in a hotel to be that senior officer and takes him to his home with respect and served him with hospitality. The guy cheats the chairman and takes a large sum of amount as a bribe and flees from the town. The chairman is left in shock when he comes to know that the real ‘Alaa Afsar’ from Delhi is reaching Chitpur tomorrow and instead, he picked up the wrong guy who cheated everyone in the town.

Play was presented in ‘Nautanki’ style where the conversations between the artists depicted close to a musical. The light-hearted dialogues infused with a satire made the play interesting. Artists who performed in the play were: Abhilash Narayan (Chairman), Himanshu Kushwaha (Alaa Afsar), Ajay Mukherjee (Devdutt), Mukesh Updhayay (Doctor) and Arun Shrivastava (Postmaster).