SOURCE: Coles, Richard. “Unveiling NW5.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5175 (7 June 2002): 18.

In the following review, Coles comments that Homebody/Kabul is an insightful and thought-provoking play.

Imagine a vast but indeterminate place, an artifice cobbled out of contending cultures and histories, at once civilized and barbarian, timely and timeless, impenetrably strange and startlingly familiar. Homebody/Kabul is itself a kind of theatrical Afghanistan; it is a demanding evening, although during the week in which another American import, Madonna, made her London stage debut, it was good to be reminded that a night in the theatre can be demanding in more than one way.

Tony Kushner's play, in Cheek By Jowl's production, is about how we, in the West, engage—or fail to engage—with the Great Other. It begins with a woman sitting at a table—a simple urban tableau, designed by Nick Ormerod, which could be anywhere in...