Love's 'Labour' not a lost cause in Kabul

Sabah-e Sahar, a famous Afghan filmmaker who plays the lead female role, says that the Afghan people will easily understand the motivations of these medieval characters. She says the traditional rules of Elizabethan England about love and modesty are very similar to the strict ban on affection in modern Afghanistan.

"Love is not new in this country," says Ms. Sahar, who has supported herself for years as a policewoman. "But you can't tell people, oh, I've fallen in love. There's lots of change from that black period until now, the Taliban period, when you couldn't even walk with your own husband in the street. In this time, we have lots of freedom. But love is still something you should keep secret."

Nabi Tanha, a veteran actor of film and television and an acting instructor at Kabul University, says that it's about time the Afghan people get a good love story.

"Ishq, or love, is a miracle from God, and everybody in the world is like this, they can't resist love," says Mr. Tanha.

Tanha recognizes that war has dispersed the educated Afghan audience that would have easily appreciated the nuances of Shakespeare. But Tanha says this just means he and his fellow actors have to work harder to get their message across.

This being theater, there have been occasional tantrums by actors, fainting spells, and complicated backstage lives. Marina Gulbahari, for instance, has to travel around the city in a burqa to avoid harassment because of her fame as the preteen star of the Afghan movie, "Osama."

There is also a strange appearance of the stuffy declamatory style of Shakespearean acting that has been difficult to squash.

Yet the greatest difficulty, Jaber says, has been to get these actors to reach down deep into themselves to that fragile part of each person where love resides, a part that most Afghans have kept hidden for years.

"All these people are in, or about to go into, arranged marriages," says Jaber. "So they're not asked, very rarely, whether they want to marry this lady or not. Marriage is not linked to love. The boys don't want to go to that point in themselves, that imagination that everybody has where love is," Jaber says. "Which is difficult, because the whole play is about love."

Yet, from a recent rehearsal in the garden, it's clear that these actors are in their element. The scene is set outside the castle walls, near the tent where the princesses are staying - uncomfortably - as guests of the king. The four noblemen have sent love letters and gifts to the princesses. Now they are arriving, disguised in Mahatma-Gandhi-style dhotis as a group of visiting Indian dancers, to profess their love to the women in person.

Led by Tanha, who plays a nobleman Biron, the men improvise a dance scene fit for a Bollywood comedy. The women break out in laughter.

The sound of Shakespeare translated into Persian is a bit jarring.

Missing is the thump-THUMP of iambic pentameter and the end-rhyme scheme. But it's clear even to a non-Dari speaker that the richness of the poetic expression has survived the rocky transfer from Elizabethan English to modern Persian, which itself has a rich poetic tradition.

But the biggest test is the effect of these pretty words on the actors themselves. In a rehearsal of the play's finale, the actors - men and women - spontaneously broke into tears. Jaber asked them what had happened, and they replied, "This is the last time these lovers will see each other." After a break, the actors melted into puddles all over again.

Somehow, one feels the bard would have been pleased.

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