Based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hasseini, this Nottingham Playhouse production of The Kite Runner comes 13 years after the original book and 9 years after the film-adaptation — both of which were huge successes in their own right. Hasseini’s extraordinary, darkly beautiful, shocking story is one that should be enjoyed with as little pre-tense as possible so it’s important to speak sparingly about the plot.Two Afghanistan boys (Amir and Hassan) are best friends but are socially unequal. Hassan and his father are servants to Amir and his father. Additionally, Hassan is a Hazara (a race of people regarded by the chief villain of the piece Assef to be an inferior race). Amir and Hassan spend their days flying kites, and on the day of the biggest kite flying competition, Amir and Hassan win the competition but their victory comes at a cost — a life-changing act of racial and vengeful violence from Assef. Hassan is the victim and Amir the by-stander who, tragically, doesn’t do anything but watch.
The story is led by Ben Turner’s Amir (now living in San Fransisco), an ever retrospective adult narrator on the events of his own life, and principally his childhood with Hassan. Turner is perfect for the Americanised Amir: a striking, chiselled, brooding performer who looks more like he should be in a Hollywood film than a piece of theatre. The Westernised Amir juxtaposes Andrei Costing’s Hassan, who is unbearably sweet, earnest and, crucially, speaks straight to the audience’s heart.
Director Giles Croft does an excellent job of reenforcing a comparison between the boys by staging many of the earlier scenes of their childhood with them physically side-by-side, to the point where they occasionally seem conjoined. This is important as it places the shallowness and ridiculousness of the racial and social disdain towards Hassan right at the forefront of our minds. A clumsier director may have made this choice feel too obvious and on the nose, but Croft’s staging is poignant and affecting whilst holding onto a sense of truth.
A nod should also be made to the excellent casting. Turner and Costing are well balanced representations of American-Afghan and Afghan cultures, respectively; Nicholas Karimi is perfect for the sociopathic Assef; and Emilio Doorgasingh as Baba (Amir’s father) is charming but also suitably stoic for the endearing, if mostly emotionally constipated, Baba.
There are a number of lighter moments in the piece. To name two: when the two children, having seen a John Wayne movie at the cinema, are convinced that John Wayne is from Kabul because in the (obviously dubbed) movie he is able to speak the local tongue, and an almost show stealing moment of joyfully hip-based and rather camp dancing from Ezra Faroque Khan during Amir’s birthday. These moments are important as they allow a chance to breathe during a story that could so easily be suffocatingly heavy with pathos.
Its difficult to deny that the show is a success, with large numbers of the audience on their feet at the end, but there are moments where I wish the production had gone further. For instance, with the movement of flying the kites; such a significant aesthetic for the story and metaphor for the boy’s relationship felt underpowered and in need of a greater, more impactful physical story-telling. And, despite doing a fine job keeping the exposition of the story clear, Ben Turner’s Amir is an odd mix of being occasionally too heavy, guilt-ridden and monotone, whilst sometimes seeming completely unaffected and blasé.
The Kite Runner is worth seeing. As a chance to see Hasseini’s unforgettable story again certainly, but also to see a delicately crafted piece of theatre that does an excellent job of making this well-known story seem more alive than ever.
Many years ago early encounters with this Shakespeare play induced such brain aching boredom that I swore to never to put myself through the ordeal of seeing it again. Standing in to review it at the last moment for an indisposed Thomas Michael Voss I'm amazed and delighted to be able to report that director Christopher Luscombe and the Royal Shakespeare Company actors at the Haymarket Theatre have made it a lot of fun.