HOMEBODY/KABUL: ONE IN THE SAME
Pulitzer Prize winning author Tony Kushner is a master at asking questions that force audiences to analyze, think, redefine, and realign their perceptions of the way they view the world. The topics and points within his work come from a place of questioning deep within himself; they somehow manage to snake their way to the surface in the form of complex and often times controversial theatrical literature. HOMEBODAY/KABUL is a prime example of his intricate and tightly wound work. A play that examines cultural differences, foreign policy, the American - Middle East conflict, religion, and family dysfunction is nothing short of multifaceted. Underneath the wide array of subject matter, however, Kushner is grappling with his own questions on the topic at hand- questions that form the unequivocal underpinnings of this play: What does HOMEBODY/KABUL have to say about the deterioration of
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human communication, and in turn, our inherent need to place blame? (Tony) A complicated and uniquely written theatrical gem, HOMEBODY/KABUL exhibits a very unique setup as far as delivering information is concerned.
We spend the entirety of the Act I, Scene I listening to “the Homebody,” a character who remains nameless for the entirety of the production. It is intriguing that a character who carries such great impact and large quantities of contention into the lives of those around her (as well as those that she will later effect) should remain nameless; perhaps a direct commentary from Kushner- referencing the nature of conflict that is rooted within the depths of communication, or lack thereof? A woman who could be considered to possess incredible worldliness, the Homebody has a keen interest in Afghanistan as well as the city of Kabul. She impresses upon us the dysfunction of her family, as well as her desire to escape to the Afghani city of her dreams. After 22 pages of her explanations, loquaciousness, delusion, and emotional confession, we transition to Afghanistan for Scene II, where the rest of our play will
remain. These first 22 pages are some of the most significant in the entire production- they set the tone for what will be a depiction of confusing and conflicting interests between people that would appear to be from entirely different times, and possibly even different worlds. The nameless and insufferable Homebody represents the personification of a handful of ideas, all of the key and integral to the driving force behind the playwright’s work. Her inability to speak clearly, concisely, and deliberately- rather, her ability to ramble- is a symbol of direct reference to one of the oldest tales of language: the tower of babble. All according to Genesis, the first book of the Torah, the Tower of Babel was constructed in the time after the great flood wiped the evil men from the face of the planet. The ancestry of Noah that repopulated the Earth grew strong and united. All speaking the same language, they became so amalgamated that they began to exude great pride, claiming their powers equal to those of God himself; this pride became motivation, compelling them to build an enormous tower that reached toward the heavens. They would all inhabit the tower, and in turn, it’s likeness to God as a stone structure built in his effigy. God split the world into 70 languages and nations, destroying the Tower of Babel, which means confusion. (Tower) The Torah’s most fundamental anecdote on communication presents a biting irony when we learn of the Homebody’s characterization of herself as a human being consumed by a love for the world and all the inhabitants within it. She is a person with a love for different languages, different words, and the land of Afghanistan; a country in the epicenter of the world’s biblical red zone. Furthermore, she describes her estranged daughter, and dysfunctional relationship with her husband. The struggles within her own family break it down, presenting two directly relatable examples of her symbolism, forging an accessible and understandable characterization of the Homebody. Her “flaw” becomes recognizable and relatable to simpler audiences not studying a written script. A woman who takes her husbands anti-depressants so that she can see the world through his eyes- who “withholds her touch” from her own daughter, quoting “the touch which does not understand is the touch which corrupts, the touch that does not understand that which it touches is the touch that corrupts that which it touches, and which corrupts itself.” The Homebody’s relationship with her own daughter is one built out of the lack of contact on the basis of unachievable communication; a relationship that will reveal itself to the fullest of it’s unconventionality and wanting throughout the rest of the production. Kushner’s Homebody functions almost identically to a Shakespearean Prologue. What is the significant difference between the Prologue found in a novel, and the Prologue presented at the start of certain productions by William Shakespeare? A Shakespearean Prologue tells the entire tale, beginning to end, covering all of the main points and summarizing the action you are about to see- with haste. It is less a preface as it is a summation, meant to clarify what will undoubtedly be a complicated journey told to a much simpler audience. The Homebody foreshadows an undercurrent beneath the rest of our play; a considerably wise move on Kushner’s part when we take into consideration the heavy nature of his material, paired with it’s unconventional presentation. She is a thematic vessel that propels us into the message behind what Kushner wants us to take away from the production. In essence, Kushner uses the Homebody as his own summation for the theme, moral, point, driving force, question, etc. behind his piece. The Homebody welcomes us into her world with descriptions of her folly, dreams, and wishes for the future- all a coded metaphor for the production you are about to see. Yet, what would a Prologue written by Tony Kushner be if not without a flare for the surreal? The single and inconceivably monumental difference between Kushner’s play and a work of Shakespeare is this: We never see our Homebody again. She comes and she goes. She functions as a blank slate of malleability from this point forward; a platform for all other characters to reference, blame, love, loath, miss, question, point to, and interact with under their own interpretations and within their own guidelines of communication. A woman who loves the world and everything in it, possessed by the ancient spirit of a planet united under one single native tongue- she is individually sought after by all that we are soon to encounter in the land of Afghanistan. Her preface to the rest of our production provides us with a spectacularly clear vision as to what Kushner is suggesting in advance. The deeper “question” of the work can be singularly gleaned from the examination of it’s first 22 pages, while it’s execution of “asking” this question can only be experienced by the visceral and dark 110 pages to come. She is a foreshadowing and synonymous preview to110 pages about the nature of Afghani political conflict with the United States, and the inspection of it’s immediate relationship to human communication, watered down and presented to us within the confines of a few basic characters (Jameson). Naturally, with this ploy in place, the more metaphorical puzzle pieces begin to show up within the jigsaw, allowing Kushner to manipulate our view of his characters and their journey’s. We follow the daughter and husband of the Homebody, as they desperately search Afghanistan. We follow the community of Afghanistan and their political strife / oppression experienced as a direct result of the theocratic totalitarian state imposed by the Taliban. What is represented by Kwaja the poet- lost to the way of his words, Quango the heroin addict doctor as destroyed as his city, Zai Garshi the former Afghani actor who sells hats for a living, and Muhala the besmirched former Librarian now isolated from the beauty of words? It is the disintegration of a once functional organism. Kushner centers on a few small examples of the ruined, isolated, and debased lives of those who have been terrorized by the religious and political tyranny in the warzone of Kabul and Afghanistan, eventually panning out farther to peer down upon the entire country. What would previously appear as a troubled and deeply upset young woman with a dysfunctional and tragically sad mother-daughter relationship, is now seen through a new lens; equally as different as that of the Homebody’s complacent, lost, and emotionally drowning husband. The point of this rehash is not to present you with a summary of a production that is less than thrilling in basic plot line: Kushner is not writing this play to criticize a political movement, time, or event. Rather, he dissects all of the above at the arteries, placing the conflict on countless local, national, and global levels. We sit through a startling debrief of a single woman’s life, emotional condition, attitude, and future dreams to understand that above all else- she represents the corrosion of communication between one human being and another. We examine that deterioration on a personal familiar level- her daughter and husband “seeking after her”. We examine it within the local lives of the Kabul citizens. Zia Garshi crumbles at the lost words of Come Fly With Me, music unfamiliar to his ears and banned from his life. Muhala erupts over the theft of her position as Librarian, a single facet in her life that allowed her to remain in touch with this communication through the words, books, and ideas of the world. Quango, in love with a city that has lost all sense of communion, eats away at his empty heart with a Heroin addiction that leaves his being as void of connection as the community he so desperately loved. Kushner probes through family, and community, but does not pause before he barrels his way into the government. The play is a escalating build up to the cataclysmic episode that is halted at the security gates at the foot of the Taliban- a clogged vein, roadblock, and centerpiece of immobility. Kushner throws the spotlight onto their practice, forcing everyone in the play, city, and globe to zero in on a political example of the communication flat-line where the heart is no longer living. HOMEBODY/KABUL, is Tony Kushner’s way of saying “not Homebody, not Kabul, but Homebody SLASH Kabul; they are one in the same.” He takes out his big, fat, red marker- and with one piece of theatrical literature- circles every element of this conflict, boiling it all down to a lack of human communication, communion, and connectivity with one another- the same disconnect found in the one of the Bible’s oldest tales. In a play where a woman’s 22 pages of dialogue represent her as a woman, country, and ideal personification of communication (both the ability to so successfully and the struggle in making it happen), everyone is seeking to find her, blame her, kill her, hug her, hold on to her, restore her, and more importantly, understand her. (Thomas) HOMEBODY/KABUL clearly has a great deal to offer by way of political commentary, foreign awareness, international/national relationships, and simply pure theatrical genius; it’s heart lies in the fact that Tony Kushner lightly presses his finger to the one idea that can be grasped by all people from all walks of life: communication. He bevels the slopes and pitfalls of its trying nature, and begs us to consider the future of our lives without it- a life displayed in full by the experiences of a desperately lost city of Kabul, and the strife experienced throughout Afghanistan.
The book Outlaw Platoon written by Sean Parnell is a soldiers’ tale of his platoon in one of the most dangerous places on earth. This book is a non-fiction riveting work that tells the story of a platoon that spent sixteen months on an operating base in the Bermel Valley, the border of Pakistan. This mission the men were sent on was part of a mission called Operation Enduring Freedom. This book is extremely relevant to the war that we are still fighting in Afghanistan and the humanitarian work that continues. We still have men in this area fighting and losing their lives everyday. It is the focus of ongoing political debates and the purpose of our involvement there is an ongoing question in the minds of many Americans. In writing this book, Parnell makes it clear in his author’s notes that he indeed was not trying to pursue one political agenda over another. His goal as not to speak of all members of the platoon and expose their identities and the types of soldiers they were but instead to showcase some of the men’s bravery and abilities during the war. Parnell believed that he owed it to the men to write something that would show the world what these men go through during combat in an honest and raw account. Another purpose of Parnell’s in writing this book is an attempt at making sure these men are given a place in American war history.
correlates to the condition of society during the fifties, and conveys a momentous idea that the people living during this time should have faith in God and hope for the betterment of society in times of hardships, and should not focus on the injustice in the world. First, the reference to the death of millions of innocent people in the bombings of London, Hiroshima, and Dresden outrightly relates to the suffering that people have experienced both during and after the war, because many people innocent perished in WWII for no reason. In addition, David’s death also parallels to the post-WWII era, and relates to J.B. and Sarah’s responses to his death to the pain and devastation that families suffered when their young children who served as soldiers died in World War II. J.B. and Sarah’s discussion during their Thanksgiving meal is yet another parallel to the postwar era and portrays the two different outlooks that people had on life after the war. Finally, MacLeish uses J.B. to relate to the people living during the postwar era by concluding the play with J.B. and Sarah finding comfort in love and rebuilding their life together as a family to convey the message that they should try to alleviate their hardships and sorrow by viewing the situation optimistically and by seeking love in the
Perspective allows people to see another person’s point of view. In the essay “The Cabdriver’s Daughter” by Waheeda Samady, she addresses her perception versus society’s opinion of her father. In her eyes, her father is a person capable of displaying kindness and expressing his profound knowledge while for some Americans, he is their preconceived notion of what a terrorist might look like. She challenges people to look past his scars and the color of skin, and “look at what the bombs did not destroy” (19). To her, he is the man that has lived through the Soviet-Afghan War, persevered through poverty, and denied these experiences the power of changing him into a cantankerous person. Samady feels prideful of her father’s grit through his past experiences yet feels sorrowful thinking about the life he could have lived if the war had never happened.
Naomi Nye was born to a German-American mother and a Palestinian-American father. However, she normally writes from her Palestinian-Arab perspective. In several of her poems within The Heath Anthology—“Ducks,” “My Father and the Figtree,” and “Where the Soft Air Lives”—Naomi Nye reminisces about her Muslim heritage and childhood as it correlates to her present identity. In addition, she incorporates the effect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on herself and on Arab culture in her work. Ultimately, Naomi Nye’s poetic work should remain in The Heath Anthology as her style demonstrates how historical events and a deep-rooted heritage can enrich a sense of identity and culture.
In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the interconnection of people and events, that might ordinarily be viewed as disconnected or unrelated, is implicitly presented in the characters section. Dual roles are implemented by a playwright that has one actor portraying the roles of two or more characters, with or without thematic intentions. The use of “dual roles” in several scenes of this play can be viewed as a demonstration of Kushner’s effort in maintaining the interconnectedness between characters, communities (i.e. queer, heterosexual, AIDS and political communities) and events to which they are relative. This essay will argue that Kushner’s use of dual role’s effectively interconnects characters, events and their communities that may be seen as usually unrelated. Analysis of four specific characters, Antarctica, Oceania, Australia and Europa, in Act Five, Scene Five of “Perestroika”, will demonstrate the connection of each Act Five, Scene Five character, to the actors main character based on the implicit evidence presented in the actors “primary” and “secondary” roles, the scenes dialogue and the character interactions. As one will see, by implementing dual roles, Kushner is able to expand or preserve the concept of a major character while the actor portrays another character, keeping the audience from having to completely renegotiate their knowledge between what they physically see of new characters and actually use the new context to view triumphs and struggles for a major character.
...display how the average citizen would see war for the first time. Colonel Kelly sees her as “vacant and almost idiotic. She had taken refuge in deaf, blind, unfeeling shock” (Vonnegut 100). To a citizen who even understands the war process, war is still heinous and dubiously justified when viewed first hand. The man who seems to have coldly just given away her son’s life without the same instinct as her has participated in this heinous wartime atrocity for so long, but it only affect her now because she cannot conceive of the reality of it until it is personally in front of her. That indicates a less complete political education of war even among those who war may have affected their entire lives. The closeness and the casualties of this “game” will affect her the most because she has to watch every move that previously could have been kept impartial and unviewed.
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Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
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