One of the myriad ideas floating through Homebody/Kabul is that of "succumbing to luxury," how individuals and civilizations alike decay in the face of unlimited opportunity and choice. Unfortunately, playwright Tony Kushner provides himself as an example of the problem, succumbing to the luxury of being a Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright upon whom no one will enforce any discipline, making it possible for him to display his erudition and vocabulary for 3-1/2 hours without ever getting to the point of his play. Though there's an enormous amount of good writing in the piece, and director Frank Galati and his cast give it a nuanced production, the work feels like a forced march to a destination unknown through an undigested stew of factoids about colonialism and attitudes about family that are united, if at all, by the prevalence of betrayal in each venue. That's an interesting idea, actually; but here's the problem: as a metaphor for family dissolution and betrayal, Afghanistan is-how to put it?-overkill, whereas as a lens through which to observe the disasters of post-colonialism, the three-person dysfunctional family is inadequate. It's not that the emperor of post-modern drama has no clothes, but that he's attired like the jewel-encrusted Afghani mogul he describes: in something striking, even thrilling, but too over-elaborated to function as a garment. When the sophisticated audience at Steppenwolf lines up during intermission at the ladies' room door in deadly silence punctuated by "How much longer?", there's something wrong with the play.
In an interview, Kushner said that his reworking of the play for Steppenwolf ended up with most of the original characters and incidents intact, because none could be lost without losing something important. Be that as it may, if the playwright didn't use seven words every time he needed one, Homebody's opening monologue could have been 15 minutes shorter and just as effective, and the same is true for every scene that follows. The balance of Act I is actually the beginning of the play proper, with the woman's husband and daughter in Afghanistan to claim her body after her death at the hands of Taliban enforcers. Husband Milton remains in the hotel room drinking with Quango, the closest thing to a British governmental liaison in Kabul, while daughter Priscilla ventures out to walk around, being apparently stupid as well as rude and resentful. She meets Khawaja Aziz Mondanabosh, a poet fluent in Esperanto who volunteers to be her guide, and through him learns that her mother is actually still alive but married Taliban-style-that is, incommunicado-to an Afghani doctor whose previous wife wants to take her place in London. Act II is completely absorbing, as each character follows his own arc in understanding these events: Priscilla learns about Afghanistan from the poet and meets Mahala, the Afghani woman seeking escape, while Quango introduces Milton to local culture in the form of opium. Mondanabosh wants Priscilla to carry some Esperanto poems to London for him; Quango wants Milton to let him court Priscilla. But then Act III offers either disappointingly predictable resolutions-the poems turn out to be terrorist documents, Quango turns out to have a letter of transit for Mahala that he'll provide only if Priscilla sleeps with him-or none at all, placing Mahala without explanation in Homebody's chair in London, rhapsodizing about a garden. This non-ending leaves the audience wondering, first, if it's over (there was noticeable hesitation before applause began) and, second, what it was all for.
On September 11, 2001, it seemed that Kushner had been fantastically lucky in choosing this timely subject. Now he seems equally unlucky, for I can't be the only person who simply cannot hear one more word about this impenetrable and insoluble mess, and particularly not in this pseudo-Brechtian presentational way where five minutes of regional history introduces every speech. The playwright should try to wear his research lightly, as he does when he has Homebody (the superb Amy Morton) reflect on the mysterious Greco-Bactrian Confusion. He should also restrain his impulse to finish scenes with predictable couplets like, "It cannot be that they've lost the body."-"Anything-everything can be lost," blackout. This sort of thing calls to mind Neil Simon's set-up/joke structure, and hardly befits Kushner's serious intentions.
Morton offers an indelible portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her monologue feels too long not because she doesn't deliver it well but because anyone who's looked at the program knows the play includes numerous other characters to be introduced and at about minute 35 can't help but wonder where they all are. The other performances are likewise strong, particularly Reed Birney's Milton, who progresses from lost soul to vicious scoundrel and back again with complete integrity. Elizabeth Ledo manages the thankless task of playing the static Priscilla, except for a very shaky and occasionally entirely absent accent, while Firdous Bamji is seductive without being smarmy as Mondanabosh. Steppenwolf stalwart Tracy Letts brings a rakish charm and an underlying pathos to Quango, at least until Kushner and Galati conspire to have him masturbating with Priscilla's panties over his head, a new low in gratuitous portrayal of degradation. This uniformly good acting is, of course, a tribute to Galati's sure touch, and he also keeps the evening paced as briskly as the text will permit.
In its excess loquacity, and to some extent in its fusion of the personal and political, Homebody/Kabul recalls the later works of August Wilson. Wilson, too, succumbs on a regular basis to the luxury of being too well-respected to be edited. But neither he nor Kushner should put onstage a play that still doesn't know what it's about and tries to conceal that by being about 3-1/2 hours long.