Shakespeare in Kabul

In 2005, a group of actors in Kabul performed "Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost" to the cheers of Afghan audiences and the raves of foreign journalists. For the first time in years, men and women had appeared on stage together. The future held no limits, the actors believed. In this fast-moving, fondly told and frequently very funny account, Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan capture the triumphs and foibles of the actors as they extend their Afghan passion for poetry to Shakespeare's. Both authors were part of the production. Qais, a journalist, served as Assistant Director and interpreter for Paris actress, Corinne Jaber, who had come to Afghanistan on holiday and returned to direct the play. Stephen, himself a playwright, assembled a team of Afghan translators to fashion a script in Dari as poetic as Shakespeare's. This chronicle of optimism plays out against the heartbreak of knowing that things in Afghanistan have not turned out the way the actors expected. Yet.

Review: "The story of the 2005 production of Love's Labour's Lost that took place in Kabul is told in a new book, Shakespeare in Kabul. On 26 April the authors, Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar, are talking at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the Stratford Literary Festival. It's a fascinating story, beginning with the difficulties of translating the play, and the problems of finding actors since theatre is not part of Afghanistan's culture." -- Sylvia Morris 20120425 "A remarkable new book has just come out about trying to mount a production of Shakespeare in Afghanistan, using a mixed cast, which of course is in itself a radical step..." -- Hugh Thomson 20120426 "Why Shakespeare? Why Love's Labour's Lost? Which language could it be translated into and acted in? How do you tell a story about romantic love in a culture which only arranges marriages? These are the sorts of discussions that occur throughout Shakespeare in Kabul... I wish this book especially well because hearing Stephen talk about it reminded me of the freedoms that Shakespeare and poetry and drama make possible." -- Paul Edmondson 20120426 "[P]robably upends everything you thought you knew about Afghanistan... It's an important book - and it's being published just after U.S. officials pledged to support Afghanistan for a decade beyond the exit of U.S. troops at the end of 2014... Yet, the bigger story that emerges from this book - and from the rapturous reception the play received in its handful of performances - is the hunger of Afghans to emerge from decades of war and Taliban repression." -- Trudy Rubin 20120429 "Shakespeare in Kabul, an entertaining, light read about Afghanistan's unorthodox and reportedly wonderful 2005-06 production." -- Joan Oleck 20120511 "Reading it, she [Jean Mackenzie] said, helped her see the last ten years through Afghan eyes." -- Alex Gallafent 20120504 "Shakespeare in Kabul offers primarily a simple narrative of the 2005 production, leaving deeper issues either implicitly evident or unexplored. The authors, who were both involved in the play, perhaps have in mind the plethora of literature on the condition of Afghanistan. As an overt focus on such issues might diverge from the main story, this is mostly welcome... refreshingly straightforward and at times moving story." -- Alex Moorehead 20120604 "Preparations for the play coincided with the release of the book 'Shakespeare in Kabul', which details the harrowing obstacles of putting on the 2005 production of 'Love's Labour's Lost' in Kabul. That was the first Shakespeare play to be staged in the capital in 30 years, say the book's American and Afghan authors, Stephen Landrigan and Qais Akbar Omar, who credit low levels of violence and optimism at the time for the production's success." -- Amie Ferris-Rotman 20120606 '...one cannot help reading this fascinating book as the elegiac record of a brief interval of inter-cultural achievement against a horrific background.' -- Jane Jakeman 20120614 "[T]he writing snaps and pops off the page with surprising animation, while also evoking heartbreaking moments of tenderness... Perhaps the most impressive part of this book is the detail to which it describes each of the actors. It explores their pasts in an almost novel-like way and ensures that the reader is able to sustain an intimate relationship with each one... Shakespeare in Kabul's strength lies in the fact that it does not offer a wholly Euro-centric viewpoint on Afghanistan. While Landrigan's views are important, Omar's accounts give depth to the experience. The reader becomes, in a sense, a citizen amongst the crowded, dusty streets of Kabul. We see every street corner, haggle with every market trader and engage in fierce poetry battles with a new group of friends." -- Archie Maddocks 20120624 "One of the most moving chapters describes the trouble the actors had grasping and portraying romantic love... While the trials the production faced are a key ingredient in Shakespeare in Kabul, so too are the triumphs it records, not least the ways in which the process broke down some of the obstacles between the actors - principally related to gender - enabling them to perform effectively in Kabul in 2005 and a variety of other Afghan cities the following year. The other delight the book offers is a portrait of Afghanistan in all its confusion, beauty and energy." -- Jerome Monahan 20120701 "Passionate, moving, sometimes funny, always candid, account of the trials and tribulations of creating the first-ever Shakespeare production in Afghanistan." -- Steve Barfield 20120720 'Just as in a good Shakespeare play, this tale of a truly Afghan production of "Love's Labour's Lost" operates on many levels... The creativity and passion, courage and determination shown by all involved are a testimony to what might have been in that country if everyone, from foreign military commanders to local heads of clans had been able to have their outlook and lives transformed by the voyage of discovery that is Shakespeare in Kabul.'