The Failure of History: Kushner's Homebody/Kabul and the Apocalyptic Context

Abstract

Tony Kushner insists that he altered none of the dialogue in Homebody/Kabul (which premiered in December 2001 at New York Theatre Workshop) to accommodate the events of September 11, 2001. It is, apparently, pure serendipity that the play takes place in Afghanistan and explores some of the more horrific aspects of life under the Taliban regime. In denying any particular prescience concerning the September tragedy, Kushner asserts only that "the broad outline of serious trouble ahead was so abundant and easy of access that even a playwright could avail himself of it" Certainly, when the woman known only as the Homebody refers to "the knowing what was known before the more that has since become known" it is a painful irony, and when Mahala, an embittered and desperate Afghan woman, angrily denounces the American policy of toleration toward the Afghan regime, it is chillingly prophetic. "You love the Taliban so much," she says to Priscilla Ceiling, whom she mistakenly believes to be American, "bring them to New York! Well, don't worry, they 're coming to New York! Americans!".

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