A performance hadn't even played before Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul was announcing its two week extension. Now the new work by the Tony Award-winning playwright of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes will play through Feb. 10 at New York Theatre Workshop. Set partially in Afganistan, Homebody/Kabul comes at a time when the play's setting has become a major focal point for world attention. With lines like "The present is always an awful place to be," one might think the play has been modified following recent events, but Kushner assured an audience at a sneak peek the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Oct. 29 that the play has not been altered. The four-hour play, presented with two intermissions, will open Dec. 19. Director Declan Donnelan helms the production.
Homebody/Kabul follows a British woman fascinated by Afghanistan and her encounter with an Afghan man whose fingers were cruelly severed. In the second part, the woman's husband and daughter search to find her in the nation's capital after she has mysteriously disappeared.
The first act is a monologue which recalls the piece's early stage as a solo show. The work-in-progress had a run at London's Chelsea Theatre Centre in 1999 starring British actress Kika Markham, the actress Kushner had in mind when it was written.
The cast of the NYTW production includes Dylan Baker, Firdous Bamji, Yusef Bulos, Bill Camp, Jay Charan, Linda Emond, Kelly Hutchinson, Joseph Kamal, Dariush Kashani, Sean T. Krishnan and Rita Wolf.
Olivier Award-winning director Donnelan makes his American debut helming the new Kushner work. His creative team includes set and costume design by Nick Ormerod, lighting design by Brian MacDevitt, and sound design by Dan Moses Schreier.
Kushner fans can also be excited about his 1993 two-part epic drama, Angels in America, being filmed by Mike Nichols for HBO.
For tickets to Homebody/Kabul at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, (between Bowery and Second Ave.), call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200, or go on-line at www.telecharge.com.
— by Ernio Hernandez
