Nina Metz

It is the mark of Tony Kushner's pure talent as a playwright that Steppenwolf's three-and-a-half-hour production of "Homebody/Kabul," a play rife with problems large and small, is nevertheless a wholly engaging experience. The first hour is a marathon monologue by a middle-aged, nameless woman, the Homebody, who is so ill-at-ease with herself and her drab life in London that she creates a fantasy vision of an exotic, immediate Afghanistan. Eventually, she leaves--runs away, actually--and travels to Kabul where she is brutally murdered. Or not. It's never clear, to either her husband or adult daughter, who have come to Afghanistan to reclaim the body. This is where most of the play's troubles begin to emerge. The daughter is a one-note, uncomprehending mess, and when issues of her past come to light--a suicide attempt, an abortion--it feels as if these details were added for melodramatic affect, rather than as elements that make up the fabric of her life. If you can zone her out, there is some very interesting stuff going on in the Kabul half of the play, anchored by deft performances by Firdous Bamji as the daughter's guide and Assif Mandvi as the chilling Taliban mullah.

"Homebody/Kabul" plays at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 North Halsted, (312)335-1650, through August 31.

(2003-07-23)

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