LAHORE: A notice has been issued to well-known stage actress Urooj Malik over performances described as obscene.
The Punjab Council of the Arts issued a written notice to Urooj Malik after she departed from the censor rehearsal during a performance in violation of the Dramatic Performances Act.
The council has required her to submit a reply within two days, failing which legal action will be initiated.
According to the Punjab Council of the Arts, several notices have already been issued to Urooj Malik. She will now also submit a sworn affidavit undertaking that she will not give obscene performances. In addition, a three-month ban on the performer is under consideration.
The regulatory mechanism at issue is specific to Lahore’s commercial theatre and is frequently misunderstood.
A stage play submitted for public performance is reviewed by a censor board, which examines the script and attends a rehearsal. If approved, the play receives a certificate permitting performance of that approved version. The offence alleged here is not the content of the approved script but the deviation from it during live performance — material added on stage that was never placed before the censors.
That gap between the rehearsed and the performed is the structural weakness of the system. A script can be sanitised for approval and the performance improvised on the night, in front of a paying audience, with no realistic prospect of prior review. Enforcement therefore falls to inspection during performances and to complaints received afterwards.
The framework derives from the Dramatic Performances Act, a colonial-era statute, supplemented by provincial rules and administered through the Punjab Council of the Arts and the district administration. Sanctions range from warnings and fines to suspension of a performer’s registration, closure of a theatre and cancellation of a play’s certificate.
Lahore’s commercial theatre on and around the Mall and in the Royal Park area is among the last surviving live entertainment industries in the country, employing performers, writers, musicians, technicians and stagehands, many without formal contracts or social protection.
Its regulation is contested. Critics argue that repeated deviation from approved scripts has pushed the industry towards a formula reliant on suggestive dance and innuendo, driving away family audiences and cheapening a serious theatrical tradition that once produced significant work.
Performers and producers respond that they operate under acute commercial pressure with no state support, that theatre owners impose the commercial expectations, and that individual actresses — almost always women — bear the disciplinary consequences of decisions taken further up the chain. They also point to the inconsistency of enforcement, arguing that penalties fall on performers rather than on producers or theatre owners.
The Lahore Times has approached Urooj Malik for comment and will publish her response in full. She has the right under the notice to place her position on the record before any action is taken, and no finding has been made against her at this stage.
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