Here it is Friday again, I don’t really know how that happened but I am ready for the weekend, even if it’s going to be a rainy one. Anyway this week I would like to start off with a little story. This past Tuesday I was, for the first time this semester, really able to take an advantage of an event that Penn State offered. I had gotten tickets to go see a performance of the novel the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini at Schwab auditorium. This book is truly one of my favorites and I am also a big fan of Hosseini’s other novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains Echoed. When I heard about the play I immediately jumped at the chance to see it.
On Tuesday night I arrived to Schwab with a friend and before the play starts we went to the ladies room. On our way back I mentioned to my friend that I was curious to know how the actor was going to portray all of the characters and tell the story by himself (I had just found out a few hours earlier that this would be a one man show). After musing over this for about 20 seconds a gentleman stepped in and said that he had overheard our conversation and asked us if we had read the book, which we both had. He then went on to say that he was part of the group that was putting the play on and told us to enjoy the show.
About fifteen or so minutes later this same man got up on stage and started to talk a bit about the play and give the audience a bit of background knowledge on the story. He then proceeded to say “A few minutes ago I overheard two women discussing how they thought that actor would play all the roles. How many of you are curious to see how he does this?” and multiple people raised their hands. My friend and I looked at each other and giggled because we knew he was talking about us, which was kind of neat. It just goes on to show that it’s really the little things that make us smile.
Anyway, you are probably wondering about the play. I must say that I was a tad bit skeptical about how one actor would play all of the parts and I was curious as to how they would go about presenting some of the more sensitive scenes from the book. I was pleasantly surprised and overall incredibly satisfied with the outcome. The whole play was done with very little props. This turned out to be a really great decision. The audience was that much more engaged and they had to invest more in the play because we had to use our imaginations to really picture the scenes. It also allowed the audience to be more focused on the story and not be distracted by props.
As far as representing the very sensitive and graphic scene from the book (if you read it you’ll know what I’m talking about, if you haven’t I don’t want to put a spoiler in here!) they did a great job. It was presented it in such a way that the audience didn’t know the explicit details of what happened but were able to get a general idea which still allowed us to understand the rest of the play. Again I found this to be a good choice on the part of the direction because most of the time this play is performed for high school or even younger students and while it is arguably the most critical scene, it is very graphic in the book and it doesn’t need to be played out that way on stage when dealing with younger audiences (it might even be uncomfortable for older audiences as well). I felt this also allowed the audience to concentrate more on the emotions of the Amir, the main character, instead of being distracted by such a scene. To sum it up, they gave us enough to still get the full affect of the scene and understand it’s gravity and how it ties in to the story.
As far as having only one actor, Sorab Wadia, for the most part it was really excellent. He used different voices and body language, which really went a long way in differentiating on character from another. I was never confused. One thing that struck me was that he almost never turned his back to the audience even when changing character. My favorite part about this was when Amir was talking to his “Baba” (father) and when Wadia switched from “Baba” to Amir I actually had the impression that he got smaller! It was just so well done.
The one “downfall” if you will, to only having one actor was thus: because he was a grown man, it was sometimes easy to forget that Amir is only a 12 year old boy, which is a key part of the story.
All in all, this was a truly amazing play. I was moved to tears more than once and I left just feeling truly fulfilled, especially after being able to engage in a discussion with the actor and the facilitators of the show.