Shakespeare in Kabul (book)

American theater is in crisis, audiences have not returned in numbers since Covid. And how do we engage the new, young audience?

Theaters are closing. Those that remain are sticking to the familiar titles. New Broadway shows are based on IP, well known movies and books.

And yet, we believe in the unique elements of live stage performance. It is an art form which may not thrive in late-stage Capitalism, but we imagine it will outlast the apocalypse. See Station Eleven. See Mister Burns.

There is something compelling about the story of a production coming together, whether it is a hard-won success or a famous flop and there seems to be a special place, as always, for Shakespeare.

Most recently, I have been reading Shakespeare In Kabul by Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar. In 2005, shortly after the Taliban was driven from power by American forces, an American playwright (Landrigan) and a French director, Corrine Jaber, decided to bring Western theatrical tradition to Afghanistan. And inspired by the rich Afghan tradition of poetry, Jaber decided it must be Shakespeare.

The narrative begins with Landrigan, but fortunately soon turns to Omar, a native of Kabul, who performed as interpreter for the company, and whose creative input would prove not only transformative but vital.

Cultural sensitivity is a thing, and having decided to produce a play by William Shakespeare in a nation invaded by foreign factions and traumatized by a fundamentalist regime for over thirty years, then choice of title was fraught with potential pitfalls.

Fortunately, they had begun the search for potential performers before choosing what they were even going to play, because their Afghan counterparts were those who insisted it must be a comedy, that their people had endured too much tragedy. The director was hoping to engage women in the performance, and perhaps the best opportunity in Shakespeare for an equal number of roles for women, is Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Labour’s is a challenging play in that it would seem that Shakespeare composed it with a very specific audience in mind. B-plots include the ethnically insensitive depiction of an amorous Spanish nobleman and the nonsensical yet pretentious ramblings of a philosopher. These are diversions, however, from the main story – a king has decided on behalf of his best friends that in order to become great men they must commit to a period of fasting, small sleep, intensive study and the complete absence of women.

Then some women show up. Not just any women: a princess and her own band of friends, charming, intelligent, and witty, and like the boys, four in number. Comedy happens. And this was just what these artists were seeking in Afghanistan in 2005.

Christine Castro & David Ellis
"Love's Labour's Lost"
Cleveland Shakespeare Festival (2000)

You can quite handily edit the text down down to these eight – and the two servants between them – and be left with an entirely satisfying, romantic evening. The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival did just this in 2000, Eric Schmiedl directing.

“They’ve tamed 'Love’s Labour’s Lost', the most problematic of Shakespeare’s comedies … through sleight of hand, with sets and props no more extensive than sunglasses and scarves [CSF] have paired it down to ninety minutes of pure enchantment.” - Cleveland Scene

In this instance, Schmiedl punctuated the romantic interplay with brief addresses chosen from popular fashion and advice magazines. These kinds of artistic choices can irritate purists – one local critic sniffed, “bar pick-up advice and dating-poll conclusions preface and diminish the perceptive beauty of Willie’s insights of the heart.”

But context is everything, and the summer of 2000 was still really the 1990s. And anyway, the Plain Dealer disagreed, calling the production, “a triumph of wit, ingenuity, and clarity.”

Reading Shakespeare In Kabul (a book which was later expanded with the title A Night in the Emperor's Garden) occasionally reminded me of Salesman In Beijing, Arthur Miller’s own account of when he was invited to direct Death of a Salesman in Beijing. In his telling, Miller is remarkably disinterested in Chinese traditions of performance, insisting his team cleave to American theatrical conventions, even as they were speaking in Mandarin.

Jaber, to her credit, wanted very much for the play to feel familiar to the intended audience. Translated into Dari, names and locations were changed to bring the story into a majestic Afghani past.

Even so, there was an issue with the “Muscovites.” Labour’s hilarity reaches its climax when the young men decide to play a kind of prank on the women, disguising themselves Russians. Reaching this part of the rehearsal process, the acting company flew into open revolt, which was shocking to the Westerners. Surely, the Afghans would love this opportunity to mock their former oppressors, and could not understand why their actors felt this was in the very worst taste.

And this is the part I love. And this is why I love to produce the works of William Shakespeare. No, let me take that a step further – this is why I love creating live theatrical productions:

Leila Hamgam, Breshna Bahar,
Marina Gulbahari, Sabar Sahar
"Love's Labour's Lost"
Kabul, Afghanistan (2005)

The French director chose to remove herself from the conflict, from the rehearsal, to – as I understand it – bring down the temperature of the situation. Left alone with the very unhappy actors, Omar – the translator – suggested the men disguise themselves as Indians. Indian culture and in particular Indian “Bollywood” films are wildly popular in Afghanistan, something the Western producers could not have appreciated.

As a result, the performance culminated with the King and his men dressing like characters from their favorite films, singing and dancing and making fools of themselves to impress and delight the women to the sheer and absolute joy of every crowd for which they performed.

The story still ends as Shakespeare conceived of it, the festivities abruptly concluding with the news of the death of the princess’s father. She must go, to mourn, and to ascend the throne, with a promise to return in one year if the men will remain true.

There is much more to the story. The freedoms promised when international forces drove the Taliban from power in 2001 were all too short lived. And one theatrical production seems like such a small thing. I guess that’s why we continue making them.

See also: 

Love's Labour's Lost (2016)

"Love's" in the Time of COVID-19

Sources:
"Back From the Beach, Two summer offerings lure us from shore to show" by Keith Joseph, Cleveland Scene (7/6/2000)
"The Bard’s Version of ‘Friends’" by Linda Eisenstein, The Plain Dealer (7/1/2000)
"Dumbed Down, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival mauls two of the Bard’s comedies" by James Damico, The Free Times (7/5/2000)

Theater Camp Writing Workshop (2026)

Theater camp has closed for 2026. An action packed eight days, full of theater games, stage combat, prop and set piece construction, costume design, more theater games, song and choreography, and a lot of playwriting.

We added the writing component after Covid, or rather, I did. I enjoyed leading a writing session for a different camp we were affiliated with in 2008 – the goal was poetry then, not plays, I had no idea what I was doing (I usually didn’t in those days, I was only forty after all) but the campers who responded to it went at it hard. Some kids love to write.

Some, however, would rather kick themselves in the face than write, and I respect that. And so, for our camp (collective our) I have insisted it be optional, presented opposite some other activity.

Most choose the other activity, which is fine. It’s preferable. This year it was at the same time as craft, and I had a dedicated crew of between four and eight for each one hour session – that was also different this season, an entire hour! And there was one period for high school aged campers, and another for middle school aged campers.

I had prepared prompt cards. We would create ten minutes of prompt-inspired free writing. Sometimes that would be followed by a debrief, or take another ten minutes to create dialogue inspired by the prompt. This was the challenge for the middle school aged campers, several of whom wanted to compose narrative. Creating action through dialogue was new to them.

As the days progressed, I would still offer prompts, but change up the assignment slightly – write a new short play based on your prompt-based free writing, or continue something you have already been working on.

They would ask, but can’t I write about -x- instead? And I would say yes. Can I work on something I was already working on outside of camp? And I would say yes. I had to remind them that this wasn’t school, I wouldn’t be collecting their notebooks, I wouldn’t ever be looking in their notebooks. They could write whatever they like. But I would continue encouraging them to write plays.

To that end I provided professional templates to follow, and we spent time talking about plays they had seen. I gave a brief description of the Aristotelian unities.

The last day, Thursday, we held an informal reading of their new works, with all of their peers as the audience. There were six or seven* short scripts, from the silly to sinister, and took volunteers from the entire assembly to stand and read and perform them to great appreciation and generous laughter.

Given the opportunity, I will expand on the material. It is challenging to develop a curriculum requiring this kind of deep focus when they are all sorts of variables that can be thrown at you. It’s a seven day workshop (six this year, really – we needed to catch up on props and sets on Wednesday) which has at times been forty-five minutes, then thirty minutes, and now an hour. Campers are asked to write for ten minutes then stop when some really want to keep going while others write for two minutes, get bored and start distracting their friends.

So, that’s a goal for next year, a more flexible lesson plan. But who wants to think about next year? Summer has only begun!

Our Unwanted Journey (2001)

“Soon after we got out of the hospital, my brother Harrol asked if we wouldn’t like to stay with him and his family in London. They had a couple of free weeks in June. June. We hadn’t thought of life past the due date. The summer was supposed to spent with a new baby. We accepted their invitation immediately.” - I Hate This (a play without the baby)

Father's Day, 2001

When we took our massive, three week Southern road trip in the year 2000, it was intended to be our last vacation for a while. We made plans. And God said, “Fuck you.”

Looking over our materials from that trip, I was surprised by many things, not least of which is how much made its way into I Hate This. I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Sun., June 17: Father’s Day. No ties or socks, please. I’d just like my dead son back.

Finished “The Sparrow” late last night. Toni finished its sequel, “The Children of God” almost an hour before, and was very sad. That one ends with someone holding a baby.

Lots of things end with someone holding a baby. In fact, I may have said everything ends with someone holding a baby. Nothing ends with someone holding a dead baby. Maybe we should change that.

I hadn’t yet read Buried Child, but still. I was onto something.

I Hate This has been noted for my stoicism, or my dispassionate accounting. My journal from this trip tells another story, where I make note of no fewer than four times I had to excuse myself to go cry somewhere alone in one of the many rooms in the house my brother and his family were managing.

We also saw a remarkable number of plays, remarkable in that my wife didn’t feel like doing much of anything at all at that time, or not much more than to sit in parks and watch the birds. I was still (theoretically) managing a theater company, seeking inspiration and desperate for distraction. Also, our eldest brother had also joined us and what do you do on vacation but go and see things.

Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber
"Night Manager"

Night Manager created by Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber (LIFT: the London International Festival of Theatre)

Wed. June 13: A boat ride down the Thames at dusk. We wore headsets and listened to poetry about life underwater (the fear, the subconscious) while attendants served us a mint, warm milk and spices, gave us a blanket, while we watched London drift by in the dark. It was a pleasant experience. (DH)

“Despite the discreet revelation of this stretch of the Thames at dusk … you find yourself gazing more at the dark grey water itself than at the cityscape on its banks. [Björner] Torsson's text encourages you to slip into reverie; after a while, the words are there not so much to be listened to as to maintain the semi-hypnotic state into which you have drifted.” 

- Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times

Howard Katz by Patrick Marber (National Theatre)

I have already written about this. The timing was poor.

Thu., June 14: I like it better upon reflection than I did watching it … a modern cross between King Lear and the story of Job where one awful man loses everything … his epiphany comes as a result of remembering what it felt like when his son was born. It upset Toni a lot. Made for a shitty trip home. We did have hot chocolate and Bailey’s in the kitchen, the five of us, and a nice time talking there.

Stephen Mangan, Lynn Redgrave
"Noises Off" by Michael Frayn

Noises Off by Michael Frayn (Piccadilly Theatre)

My junior year in high school, we conducted a workshop of first act of Noises Off and during my senior year the Cleveland Play House produced the first professional production I had seen. This was my second, a National Theatre transfer that now starred Lynn Redgrave and Stephen Mangan, who would later star in the fucking hilarious TV show Green Wing.

Fri., June 15: Lynn Redgrave. Man. She is a loon. First act was all right. The second they shouted too much. Gave me a headache.

Father’s Day proper we eschewed theater altogether, my brother and his wife thoughtfully proposing a drive to the New Forest Otter, Owl & Wildlife Park.

Sun., June 17: The park was very big; boards, wallabies, deer, ferrets, polecats – and lots of otters. Europeans, Asian, British, Canadian, big, small, swimming, galloping, dry, wet … very fun, very moving. We stayed a lovely, long time.

And then we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

Bill Nighy and Chiwetel Ejiofor
"Blue/Orange" by Joe Penhall

Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall (Duchess Theatre)

Every time I see professional theater in Britain, inevitably one or usually more of the actors in any given production eventually become stars in America. They were probably already famous in Britain, on stage and the Beeb but I’d never heard of them.

I have caught more than one play about the National Health Service (NHS). Two years ago that would have been People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan, a quarter century ago it was Blue/Orange, a three-hander in which two doctors debate whether or not a man who claims to be the son of Idi Amin (and believes oranges are blue) deserves his state-sponsored hospital bed.

All three actors were very good. They also happened to be Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy.

Remember when everyone was writing plays that had two word titles with a slash in the middle?

Tue., June 19: I read the new Neil LaBute, “The Shape of Things,” now playing at the Almeida. Honestly. What is wrong with that man? I think he is a good writer, he just doesn’t write good. Here he’s trying to write something like "Closer" only it’s closer to Oleanna in its lack of balance and treatment of women and his male protagonist doesn’t deserve anything that happens to him.

Jasper Britton and Eve Best
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Tim Carroll, Master of Play

This was my first experience hearing a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, though as of 2026 I have only seen two productions there. 

We participated in a tour the last time we were in town, shortly before the grand opening in 1997. Since that time, and under the artistic direction of Mark Rylance, the company had distinguished itself by its dedication to historical accuracy in design and, as near as can be ascertained, performance.

This production of The Scottish Play, however, was controversial for its nontraditional conceit, the entire cast (including witches) dressed in tuxedoes, with the exception of Lady M. (Eve Best) in a silky, silver gown. The cool jazz score was composed by Claire van Kampen, and I am so grateful to have had the foresight to purchase that CD.

“It is welcome and right that the Globe should start to experiment and move on from what was in danger of becoming museum Shakespeare, but Carroll's production doesn't even tell the story clearly. There is too much paraphernalia, as if every bright idea has been indiscriminately incorporated rather than carefully considered. So we get blood and death represented not just by gold tinsel, but also by coloured feathers and pebbles thrown in buckets.”
- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Well. I enjoyed it a lot.

Peter Capaldi and Henry Goodman
"Feelgood" by Alistair Beaton

Feelgood by Alistair Beaton (Garrick Theatre)

Not all political dramas have a freshness date, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui still holds up, but this one was a bit whiffy when it premiered. I was excited to see Nigel Planer (The Young Ones) live on stage, but the delight of the evening was Peter Capaldi (who?) as a frazzled No. 10 speech writer. It would not surprise me if this turned out to be his unintentional audition for The Thick of It a few years later.

Wed. June 20: Well. I am sick of bad playwriting. Saw "Feelgood” tonight. Wish I hadn’t. Left me depressed. Stupid, preachy, unfunny comedy. It’s a TV movie on-stage. I hate that.

School Play by Suzy Almond (Soho Theatre)

Our final production – in London. A play which puts the lie to the time-worn story of the teacher with a heart of gold who helps disenchanted students discover their true selves. What if the teacher isn’t actually very good, in a very real and troubling way?

“The situation is ripe with sentimental opportunities, all of which Almond strenuously resists. What she actually shows is two solitary misfits with a ruthless eye for each other's weaknesses.”
- Michael Billington, The Guardian

Returning home, we had made plans to spend a few days in NYC before taking a train home. This turned out to be an error, we were emotionally spent from our journey and ready to just not do anything.

And yet. We spent a lovely morning getting tickets to see Mary Zimmerman’s production of Measure for Measure at the Delacorte, starring Billy Crudup, Sanaa Lathan and Joe Morton. As it happened, we would be back in August to see the other free summer offering in the park, but to attend The Seagull we would need to spend the night.

See also:
Howard Katz (play)
The Seagull (2001)

Sources:
"Review: Macbeth" by Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 6/7/2001 
"Review: School Play" by Michael Billington, The Guardian. 6/24/2001