Teatro in Kabul

March 4 from Kabul
Lat Sat AM I took my worl (started out as a typo but now I like it) lit students to meet the company of the Afghan National Theater (last posted photo). We met in their rehearsal room which is like a giant womb, a circular room , walls covered in red velvet with tiered seats of red velvet cushions facing stage- all this on the top floor of the French Cultural Center which also houses the Lycee (French high school for boys- whose students and graduates form the majority of the company). It’s a wonderful space, the French seem to have the right idea in a lot of ways (I’m maybe unfairly comparing them to our basic nuts and bolts, less than cultural USAID funded university): as in get them while they’re still in High school, but also the Cultural Center sponsors painting and photography exhibits, shows (French) films, etc.
The company has been in existence for 4 yrs, have performed from the European canon: Caucasian Chalk Circle, Romeo and Juliet, Moliere. The member s of the company told us they are barely surviving, all have real jobs as tailors and carpenters (which of course comes in handy for sets and costumes – they all do double duty as actors and something else.) They don’t have much support from Afghans in general. I suggested it’s because they are doing work by old Europeans, not writing about Afghanistan. They said they tried to write a play about the drug culture (Hillary’s narco state), but they got censored. Of course they’re beholden to the French but they are learning a lot. I invited them to come to my (proposed) theater/production class in the fall. My students went into the meeting with barely any interest and came out aficionados.
On Friday night I hosted a reading of my play, The Musalla of Migzarad (that I began writing in 2002!) It was the first time I had Afghans playing the roles AND in the audience and the feedback made up for the non-pro actors (who’ve been in everything I’ve done for the past five years and spoiled me rotten). I learned things like Rajiv ( minor character), is a Hindu name , not Afghan. The most brilliant feedback came from my new Afghan-America friend Fatima who works for the International Center for Transitional Justice in Brussels, lives half time in London so I feel lucky to even meet her. She thought it was an “”eloquent “”idea to have 3 women from Afghan history symbolically rebuild the country (you’d have to see it, hopefully someday you’ll be able to), liked the implied “”unyielding misplaced glorification of the veil””; and from Kamran, who’s also Afghan American- listening to the play he couldn’t understand why (I made ) the main character so vociferously and even obnoxiously American (which a lot of the group wondered about)- and then afterwards, he got it. Also I learned that a couplet I quote attributed to legendary (and probably mythical) heroine, Malalai, has become an idiom used whenever someone threatens to give up.
After the theater co mmeting on Sat I went shopping downtown briefly and fell badly- it was a stupid fall- I was looking in my purse instead of where I was going and literally flipped over a waist high cement barrier and slammed with my knees and elbows ( protecting my head) into the sidewalk- at first I couldn’t get up, and Sangor, my guard was a t a loss. An Afghan stranger came over, grabbed my arm and made me get up, indicating it was very dangerous for me to remain on the sidewalk even for a minute. I’m still quite bruised but amazingly no real damage I don’t think. Need sleep! Hasta la proxima.