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An outspoken playwright realizes his fate is in Afghanistan
When you sit down with William Mastrosimone, you'd better hold onto your seat. No topic is off limits to the 56-year-old playwright (Extremities, Bang Bang You're Dead), and he's got a muscular, informed opinion on most things you're likely to bring up. Discuss the war on terror and you'll find yourself hearing about the history of the Roman army. Chat about Greek poets and he'll wax poetic on the lyricism of fellow New Jersey scribe Bruce Springsteen. Talk about world culture and the plight of a place near and dear to his heart will come up: Afghanistan.
Mastrosimone has had connections with Afghanistan for years. In 1981, long before the country dominated American headlines, the playwright was spending time with Mujahadeen rebels who were fighting the Soviet occupation. In 1984 he wrote a play called Nanawatai (the title borrows the Pashtun word for "sanctuary") that dealt with the Soviet invasion. Now he's revisiting the country again, both in his writing and in his travels. This past January he visited Kabul and presented a brand new play, The Afghan Women, among the ruins of the Kabul Theatre, which had been destroyed, along with most of the rest of the capital city, during the 1992-96 civil war.
Mastrosimone wrote The Afghan Women as a fundraiser for the benefit of Afghan orphans. But the play, about an Afghan woman who confronts and kills a powerful warlord in the post-9/11 era, has blossomed into a work that the Philadelphia Inquirer compared to Greek tragedy-"passionately written and forcefully delivered by vividly drawn characters." Produced at the Passage Theatre of Trenton, N.J.; the Harper Joy Theatre in Walla Walla, Wash.; the University of Washington, in Bellingham, Wash.; and elsewhere, the play has been optioned for Broadway by the producing team of Fred Zollo, Frank Gero and Eric Krebs. Upon the playwright's return from Kabul, I sat down with him to talk about his connection to Afghanistan.
When did you first feel yourself drawn to Afghanistan?
In 1980. I was just starting my career as a writer. I remember I was in rehearsal for The Woolgatherer at Circle Repertory Company, and it was the year Mt. St. Helens exploded. Ash that spewed...