Kabul

115270 original

Beginning in 1997, Amok Theatre’s play about the Afghan capital opens with a recital of the repressive Taliban laws that swept the city at that time, chief among them a series of brutally enforced restrictions on the activities of women. In a kind of defiance against this, Kabul takes its audience into homes and beneath veils, showing the individuals the state sought to hide. It is one long act of transgression.

Each scene of this tale of two inter-linked couples takes place behind closed doors, within a clearly marked domestic square in the centre of the stage. Hemmed in by the tyranny outside, relationships flare and fester in containment, as two sets of husbands and wives grapple with different challenges under the new regime. One pair is blighted with illness and the creeping spectre of guilt; the other faces crisis and division under the pressure of poverty and unemployment.

While the piece is punctuated with powerful images and effectively overlaid with a mournful live soundtrack, its extended portraits seem content with just scraping at the surface. As the pitch steadily rises, melodrama is favoured over reflection, and manipulative emotional dilemma takes the place of true interrogation.

With the minimum of contextualisation, Amok Theatre are concerned with symptoms rather than causes, preferring not to delve into the system or set of beliefs that determine the domestic space of its scenes. As striking as it is to lift the veil, Kabul imposes its own limits by refusing to set foot outside.