Homebody/Kabul: Final Revised Version

I have been a huge Tony Kushner fan ever since i read and subsequently performed in Angels in America my first and second years of college. I bought Homebody/Kabul as soon as it came out in paperback, and was fortunate enough to see it performed at the Intiman Theater in Seattle recently. After reading and seeing this play, my love for Kushner and his work has only deepened. At this point, to call Kushner a master of language is to belabor the point. He capable of provoking any reaction under the sun, from hilarity to pathos to utter despair, with a simple, poetic phrase one moment, then a completely different reaction the next. I also won't waste time your time with my interpretation of the "message" of the play, though it certainly has many messages. The first act of Homebody/Kabul consist of one character (the Homebody) sitting in a chair recounting a selective history of Afghanistan mixed in with stories from her life, for an entire hour! Now, read on the page this can get tedious at times, though the stories are interesting. But Ellen McLaughlin, the masterful actor who performed the role in Seattle, sat on stage in one place for that whole hour and commanded the entire attention of the audience. It was mind-boggling, awe-inspiring, transporting, and reminded me forcibly of the difference between reading and performance. McLaughlin took the, admittedly brilliantly constructed, words on the page and turned them into something vital, poetic, and magical. The rest of the play deals with the aftermath of the Homebody's decision to go to Kabul and disappear. Her husband Milton and her daughter Priscilla, hearing she has been killed, go to Kabul to recover her body. Soon evidence turns up that she may have taken the veil and married a Muslim man. But she is never actually seen again, leaving the other characters to come to their own conclusions and deal with her disappearance as best they can. Along the way we are treated to hilariously funny moments, such as Priscilla almost setting her burqua on fire with a cigarrette and Milton trying opium and heroin with junkie NGO employee Quango Twistleton, and heartbreaking ones such as an Afghan woman's multilingual rant about the state of her country and a man moved to tears by a Frank Sinatra song. As a whole the play is certainly not perfect, it is sometimes unwieldy and some scenes seem under developed. But for me this is more than made up for by its scope, ambition, and searching intelligence. This is not Tony Kushner telling us what to think, he is presenting us with historical information filtered through the eyes of some deeply flawed but fascinating and ultimately human characters. In the end, he does not lay blame for the miserable state of Afghanistan on this or that country or faction, but shows how eveyone is responsible and no one wants to take the responsibility of really making it right. See it performed if you can, but if you can't, read the script, mull it o

Can you imagine a play that is awesome? I can, because I saw it last month at the Hillsboro community center for Arts Performance. It was Tony Kushners (no relation to Ashton : )) play called Homebody Kabul. What is good about it? The timeliness, and also how it relates to our situation in the Middle East and in Afghanistan and in Pakistan also right now. Of course, after I saw the play I immediately bought the book and then read the play in the book, and I was not disappointed--its Kushner's dramatic explication of important ideas that really made the characters "leap" off the page and into my imagination, not to mention how it made me think. I recommend this book to the socially-minded literati of today's generation X youth. Good? Yes it is. Also check out his other play, Angles in America.

Homebody's extended thought streams and speeches were wonderful. I would like to meet her, assuming she is not dead of course. This is the first play I have read by Tony Kushner and I have never been lucky enough to see any of his plays performed. I think he is a fascinating writer. I laughed, I learned, I was outraged, I nodded my head in agreement.Tony Kushner was quoted and an excerpt was read from "Homebody/Kabul" at a local Not in Our Name event. His words and work resonate with the time.Since I wrote the above review, I saw the play last night. It is even more powerful on stage. In the long Homebody monologue, it felt like the audience wanted to support Homebody, she seemed vulnerable alone on the stage for so long. Her comments made the audience laugh, nod in agreement, and feel her sadness.The tone changed in the second half of the play and the audience seemed wrung out at the end with all the emotions and ideas to ponder. Whether read or watched, this play is exceedingly powerful. I highly recommend both.

Like Angels in America, Kushner juxtaposes two seemingly different people and their respective societies, only to show how similar they really are. What are more absurd, Kushner seems to ask, some of the obvious horrors of life in Afghanistan, or some of the subtle opiates that constitute life in the Western world? Neither society appears to be fulfilling in the long run, though a change of scenery seems to be the tonic. Kushner describes a world in which the insanity of one world appears to be the cure for the insanity caused by the other. This play is certainl though-provoking, and not easily forgotten. I'd love to see it in the theater.

Although some readers may be disappointed the Tony Kushner's latest play is not at all similar to his first great play, ANGELS IN AMERICA, it is one of the best plays of the decade. Kushner begins with a character who is drawn to travel to Afghanistan where she disappears. Her husband and grown daughter arrive in Kabul under the Taliban to find their wife/mother. They never do find her, but instead are exposed to life in Afghanistan under the Taliban -- a country retaining aspects of its great history, but living in a present of oppression and fear. Through this, Kushner explores the West's culpability in the tragedy of Afghanistan, the ability of the human spirit to survive under the worst possible circumstances, and the need on both sides to truly experience and understand the other. The play is filled with Kushner's trademark style -- a Brechtian, cinematic structure -- and lyrical flights of language, rich characterizations, and fascinating, disturbing ideas about a part of the world few Americans understood or knew much about prior to the tragedies of September 11. Now, more than ever, this play raises some of the most important questions of our time.