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Homebody/Kabul: Revised Version |
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Amazon Sales Rank: 167455
Publication Date: 2005-02-03
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
ISBN: 1559362391
Type: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 172
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"Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul is the most remarkable play in a decade . . . without a doubt the most important of our time."-John Heilpern, New York Observer "This compelling evening testifies that Mr. Kushner can still deliver his sterling brand of goods: a fusion of politics, poetry and boundless empathy transformed through language into passionate, juicy theater . . . a reminder of how essential and heartening Mr. Kushner's voice remains."-Ben Brantley, New York Times "Homebody/Kabul is a rich and intelligent piece."-Peter Brook "Searing . . . Kushner's use of language and ideas continues to make us think about the deeper questions . . . he makes the political personal . . . a masterful conglomerate of words, ideas and history."-Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun Times In Homebody/Kabul, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America, has turned his penetrating gaze to the arena of global politics to create this suspenseful portrait of a dangerous collision between cultures. Written before 9-11, this play premiered in New York in December 2001 and has had subsequent highly successful productions in London, Providence, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. This version incorporates all the playwright's changes over the past two years and is now the definitive version of the text. Tony Kushner's plays include A Bright Room Called Day and Slavs!; as well as adaptations of Corneille's The Illusion, Ansky's The Dybbuk, Brecht's The Good Person of Szecguan and Goethe's Stella. Current projects include: Henry Box Brown or The Mirror of Slavery; and two musical plays: St. Cecilia or The Power of Music and Caroline or Change. He recently collaborated with Maurice Sendak on an American version of the children's opera, Brundibar. He grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he lives in New York.
Average Rating: 
Review: 2008-07-28
Elmer Rice Returns
Some people believe in reincarnation. I don't but for those who do, here is some evidence to support your case/cause. Kushner can write a pretty line, but here we have further evidence that we have a talented writer in search of a genre. Why America produces playwrights with the desire to tell the story of mankind is hard to explain. Russians don't, so sprawl alone cannot be the answer. There's O'Neill, Rice, the mature Williams, Miller: they all used the stage to explain the universe. On occasion they wrote a decent play. Kushner's writing is so good that critics overlook the fact that he can't write a play. Four hour epics don't cut it. This play opens with an arresting monologue which, as delivered in New York, was fascinating and well-worth the price of admission. The so-called play that takes up the rest of the evening is disappointing to say the least. Like Elmer Rice, there is a lively mind at work here, with huge theatrical ambitions, trying to write down everything that pops into his head. The result is a mediocre little drip into the sand of time.
Review: 2004-02-24
The great dramatist of our time takes on Afghanistan
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 over, and come to your own conclusions.
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