By Susan Dunn
Can there ever be too much of something wonderful? The Kite Runner might just test those boundaries.
The first novel by Afghan refugee-turned-physician-and-novelist Khaled Hossieni, The Kite Runner, became a runaway success with 101 weeks on the best seller list and 3 weeks at #1. Published in 2003, it was expanded into an acclaimed Academy Award-nominated movie in 2007 and then adapted into a stripped down theater version by Matthew Spangler. Other lives include a graphic novel created in 2021.
Now The Kite Runner, the play, is back to a packed audience at the Hammer Theatre Center in San Jose, where it first launched over fifteen years ago in 2009.
… a classic story of sin and redemption …
It’s a story that helped educate the American public on the culture of a distant country with which we happened to be at war for 20 years. It is a classic story of sin and redemption based on the lives of two young men raised in different social classes and physical abodes but within the same household and ultimately by the same father.
Amir, the first son and our lead and narrator is passionately and convincingly portrayed by Ramzi Khalaf as a man coping with his own failings to do the right thing by Hassan, the son of a servant. Amir’s father is in the diplomatic corps, houses his immediate family in a privileged Kabul home, and is able to escape Afghanistan with Amir as refugees to California.
Hassan, however, ultimately becomes a victim of terrorists who overrun his home in Kabul. Amir’s sin is to take advantage of the lower-class Hassan, lord his superiority over him and to let jealously of his father’s affection for Hassan infect him. A local crime of shame separates the two young men, who were so close in their early years, and leaves a lasting scar on Amir as he refuses to help Hassan and ultimately rejects him.
Years later, when Amir returns to Kabul he faces the truth of his past, makes the requisite sacrifices for the future and asks for forgiveness and redemption.
Does The Kite Runner work as a play? The adaptation by Spangler is essentially a narrative told to us directly by Amir who remains the center of every scene. It is a compelling story told mostly in first person and staged with minimal sets, lighting and music, very much like Word for Word productions.
What keeps this play from stasis? It’s the multiple levels of time – youth and maturity; country – Afghanistan and the US; culture – Islamic and Democratic; fortune – wealth and poverty; class — multi-ethnic upper and lower classes; and finally family – the father’s and son’s stories. It wasn’t until his second novel that Hosseini writes in depth about women.
Accompanying these various stories, woven together for us by Amir, and semi-staged and acted, is the music of this Afghan culture: the tabla, a set of drums played with the hands that create different rhythms and tonal sounds. The tabla opens and closes this multi-cultural epic, which continues to entertain and move us with its staying power.
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Since arriving in California from New York in 1991, Susan Dunn has been on the executive boards of Hillbarn Theatre, Altarena Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, Virago Theatre and Island City Opera, where she is a development director and stage manager. An enthusiastic advocate for new productions and local playwrights, she is a voting member of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and a recipient of a 2015 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Contact: susanmdunn@yahoo.com
| Production | The Kite Runner |
|---|---|
| Play Adaptation by | Matthew Spangler |
| From the novel by | Khaled Hosseimi |
| Directed by | Giles Croft |
| Producing Company | The Hammer Theatre and EnActe Arts |
| Production Dates | Thru April 7th |
| Production Address | 101 Paseo De San Antonio, San Jose, CA 95113 |
| Telephone | (415) 677 9596 |
| Tickets | $65-$125 |
| Reviewer Score | Max in each category is 5/5 |
| Overall | 4/5 |
| Performance | 4/5 |
| Script | 4/5 |
| Stagecraft | 4/5 |
| Aisle Seat Review PICK? | YES! |