One of the best-loved and most highly acclaimed novels of our time, THE KITE RUNNER is a powerful play of friendship that follows one man’s journey to confront his past and find redemption. Afghanistan is a divided country and two childhood friends are about to be torn apart. It’s a beautiful afternoon in Kabul and the skies are full of the excitement and joy of a kite flying tournament. But neither of the boys can foresee the incident which will change their lives forever. Told across two decades and two continents, THE KITE RUNNER is an unforgettable journey of redemption and forgiveness, and shows us all that we can be good again.
Despite the attractive projections of Afghanistan and San Francisco, there is no relief to be found in the staging of the show. Characters do that weird thing of walking round in circles and to the left and right a bit to convey walking long distances or negotiating spaces with unseen doors or streets. The biggest bizarre design decision is to not feature actual theater-filling, kite-flying. Come on, you're in a Broadway theater doing The Kite Runner! What about finding a striking way to recreate the amazing races Hosseini evokes so beautifully on the page. But no. Instead, all that lingers is the heavy pall of homophobic, simplistic ugliness-and so many unanswered questions.
Adapting novels for the stage is a noble endeavor; a healthy culture should be eager to translate its new (or classic) narratives into other media. I've seen revelatory theatrical versions of Dostoyevsky's Demons (twice), Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (verbatim in the marathon masterpiece by Elevator Repair Service) and others-many at New YorkTheatre Workshop. While popular fiction generally gravitates to movies or streaming series, there is an argument to be made for transforming novels into live performance. The Kite Runner, long on talking and short on showing, does not make that argument very strongly.
2017 | West End |
West End Transfer West End |
2017 | West End |
2017 West End Transfer West End |
2022 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2024 | US Tour |
North American Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Amir Arison |
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