NEW YORK — “A land mine,” observes a sardonic character in “The Kite Runner,” now landed on Broadway in the summer heat. “Is there a more Afghan way to die?”
That shocking line, taken directly from the 2003 novel by Afghan American author Khaled Hosseini, distills the trauma of that long-anguished nation, rich in resources but partitioned in strife, long fought over by the British and the Russians and seen by the Biden administration as an unwinnable quagmire that caused the longest war in U.S. history.
For many Americans, although not all, the best Afghan strategy has meant making an exit while shrugging off the humanitarian cost of aiding and abetting the further rise of the Taliban, a terrifying sect for whom lethal land mines long have been the weapon of choice. Along with executions.
In the middle of that horrible history flew “The Kite Runner,” a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel, and then movie, about two boyhood friends in Kabul. It was penned by Hosseini, himself a member of the U.S. Afghan diaspora, as found in many neighborhoods of New York City.
Hosseini’s hugely successful story of the brutal ethnic oppression of the Hazaras by the Pashtun is found, dog-eared, on many middle- and high-schoolers’ nightstands or floating alongside Minecraft on their tablets.
Although not without controversy (what book is, these days?), “The Kite Runner” is on a lot of school districts’ curricula and, in the seats of the Helen Hayes Theatre, adolescents can be seen in pairs, perhaps exploring further or maybe having just decided that seeing the 2 hour, 40 minute show was quicker and easier than reading the book. They’re a rare sight on Broadway, and their vocalized comparisons with the source material are unusual sounds.
Those kids likely left with much of use to them. But for anyone deeply fond of “The Kite Runner,” and cognizant of its explosive theatrical possibilities, the show, previously seen in London’s West End, is mostly an overly prosaic, sincerely acted disappointment.
There is a strange flatness to Matthew Spangler’s adaptation. In novel form, “The Kite Runner” is told from the point of view of Amir (Amir Arison), the privileged Pashtun boy who fails to stop a sexualized attack on his servant, but really his best friend, a Hazara named Hassan (Eric Sirakian).
In the novel, “The Kite Runner” is a story of the search for atonement by a person overly oppressed with gaining the approval of his father (played by Faran Tahir). But it rarely voices the feelings of the kid whose life turns to dust; instead, he functions as a kind of angelic presence, a cipher for the guilt of his rich pal.
In 2003, people looked at this story as two kids pulled apart by circumstance, and that’s true. But people now rightly pay more attention to ownership of a story and, simply put, far too much of the night is given to great swaths of first-person narration by Amir, an imbalance intensified by a lead performance exterior to everything and that proceeds at precisely the same pace all night. Or so it feels.
Seeing everything through one pair of narrative eyes limits what the show can achieve on stage. And time and time again — most notably when Amir finally explains the past to his underwritten new wife, Soraya (Azita Ghanizada) — we are told about a scene rather than shown. Sure, there’s an imperative to be honest to the novel and the protagonist’s journey through guilt is easily understood by a broad audience. But this is now a play and it’s a different time.
It’s clear that Sirakian is a deeply moving actor; but the show never gives him enough power in his own part of the story to fully demonstrate. The same applies to Ghanizada, playing the one woman on the stage with any kind of role. Frankly, it’s egregious.
For a Broadway show, the production values are as underwhelming as the overtly presentational direction from by Giles Croft. There is some rich kite imagery, for sure, and live music from the percussionist Salar Nader (he plays the tabla). But even those sounds are sometimes drowned out by superfluous recorded music. Everything is too slow, too ponderous and, in the case of all of the actors playing multiple roles, their confusing trajectories were insufficiently thought out by the director.
What you get here is a modestly packaged version of a powerful archetypal story.
What you miss is the racing present of Kabul: the chaos, the movement, the ancient antagonisms, the rush of youth and danger.
In war zones, snap decision with cascading consequences are often required. Here, you see only person make them, and it’s not the boy running with the kites.
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