‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ was the last show that Roxana Silbert directed when she was artistic director of the REP back in 2019. Now she is back directing this epic tale once again.
Ursula Rani Sarma’s play which she adapted from Khaled Hosseini’s novel covers the period from 1974 to 2001 but in truth the messages it sends have even more relevance to Afghanistan today in 2025.
The story itself concerns the unique journey of two women forced together by circumstances and their unique bonding over decades of adversity. This is Mariam played superbly by Rina Fatania with an equally powerful performance from Karena by Jagpal as Laila.
Picture by Ellie Kurttz. sThe set by designer Simon Kenny consists of hexagonal carpets, some raised some painted on the floor, they invoke the feel of Aladdin but without the pantomime. They change the mood by way they are lit by an imaginative lighting design from Matt Haskins. The backdrop is the famous mountains which housed Bin Laden and his merciless despots not Ali Baba and his 40 thieves. The wings are bleached wooden structures which become many things.
The opening is gentle – with the carpets looking warm and inviting as we watch the happiness of a family outside their house packing to move home. From the conversation we learn this is to escape a pending war between feuding warlords. The sky is blue and there is laughter, song and dance amidst the sound of occasional distant bombing.
Picture by Ellie Kurttz. sThe carpets darken as the father sensing the bombing is getting closer ushers the family inside. Suddenly the home suffers a direct hit killing everyone except 14-year-old Laila who had stayed outside playing.
Now orphaned Laila is offered shelter by middle-aged neighbour Rasheed (a suitably Machiavellian Jonas Khan). Laila has hardly been under Rasheed’s roof for five minutes when he proposes to his first wife Mariam that this barely out of childhood, beautiful young girl should become his second wife. She begs him not too, but he does anyway.
Laila surprisingly agrees much to the understandable angst of Mariam
Though they start out as adversaries, Laila and Mariam are destined to become soul mates – to the point that one will forfeit her life in order that the other might have one.
Laila is pregnant when she marries Rasheed, it is actually by the love of her life Tariq who Rasheed convinces her is dead. Laila for self-preservation lets Rasheed believe he is the father. When her child turns out to be girl, he loses total interest.
Picture by Ellie Kurttz. sSo begins years of beatings and abuse for firstly Mariam and later both wives. They try to run away at the instigation of Laila, but this turns out to be a disaster – their money is stolen, they are arrested and returned to Rasheed, who beats Mariam mercilessly in a long and distressing scene.
As if their lives were not bad enough, worse was to come through the rise of the Taliban – what little rights women did have were completely taken away. The rules were that they were to be constantly covered from head to toe, never looking any man in the eyes, not allowed out unaccompanied and not allowed to listen to music or be educated with any slight misdoing being punishable by flogging, mutilation or death.
Laila delivers Rasheed the son he yearned for and who he grooms in his own misogynistic image.
A mature and successful Tariq (charming stuff from Jonny Khan) returns after many years from Pakistan and meets up with Laila again confessing his love for her has never died. The meeting is spotted and reported back to Rasheed by his son.
Laila finds Rasheed waiting to strangle her, as he believes is his right. Both wives fight him and he is finally dispatched by the long-suffering Mariam who literally strikes a blow for freedom by bludgeoning him to death with a mighty blow from shovel. This was greeted with audience applause not only in appreciation of his demise but in deference to abused women all over the world.
I found Silbert’s original production to be a very powerful piece of theatre and the same is true this time with the addition of the dark moments being even darker and the bleakness of the tale made even bleaker. This is understandable as in 2021, just 2 years after its premiere; events happened – America pulled out of Afghanistan after a decade of change, leaving the Taliban free to take over once again and turn the gender equality clock back to zero.
I enjoyed the new ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ very much, if enjoy is the right word – I laughed with the two wives and felt their pain . I also wished someone could find a magic lamp in one of the caves in Afghanistan thereby releasing a genie and grant the brave women just one wish – equality.
Do go, this is an important piece of theatre which touches the soul as it delves the strength and depth of human spirit.
A Thousand Splendid Suns runs at the Birmingham REP until May 3. Click here for times, tickets and more information.
