Matthew Spangler: Last News

Broadway’s The Kite Runner will require audiences to wear masks at Friday night performances beginning August 19, producers announced today, becoming the first Broadway production to adopt a sort of hybrid masking policy.

Marilyn Stasio Theater CriticPlaywright Matthew Spangler’s adaptation of “The Kite Runner,” Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling 2005 novel about the friendship of two boys living parallel lives in Afghanistan, is a heartbreaker – but so uplifting, it’s worth the pain.The scribe puts it succinctly when he tells us, in a program note for the current Broadway production, that “this is a story about a father and son; two best friends; a husband and wife; immigration; the relative peace of 1970s Afghanistan; global politics; class and ethnicity; and much more.” More pointedly, he adds that, above all else, this epic-scaled drama is “a story of guilt and redemption.”If there’s a fault in Spangler’s meticulous adaptation and Giles Croft’s dynamically inventive direction, it’s that Amir (Amir Arison, who grasps this demanding role with both hands and holds on for dear life), the flawed hero based on the author’s biographical persona, is so exceedingly selfish and cruel to his loyal best friend in Act I, it takes herculean acts of atonement in Act II to earn his righteous redemption. As narrator of his own story, Amir initially presents himself as an adult, but a call from Afghanistan offers him “a way to be good again” if he will return home — and to the pivotal events that forged his character at the age of 12.

Khaled Hosseini’s 2003 bestselling novel The Kite Runner is the sort of compelling, epic morality tale that spans eras and cultures, depicts friendship and betrayal, loyalty and cowardice, acts of kindness and demonstrations of unspeakable cruelty. With its eye on an all-but-guaranteed redemption, The Kite Runner has an unmistakable allure – equal parts beach read and Serious Literature – that proved irresistible to Hollywood and, now, Broadway.

Playwright Matthew Spangler’s stage adaptation of The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling book-turned-movie, will make its Broadway premiere this summer.