The young immigrant grows up, marries fellow Afghan exile Soraya (Lisa Zahra) and launches a career as a writer. A violent, racist sociopath, Assef eventually beats and rapes Hassan while a terrified Amir hides out of view, leaving him with a deep sense of shame for the rest of his life.įollowing the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Amir and his father become refugees, finally settling in the Bay Area in 1981. Any wider cultural tensions between the two boys are rarely an issue until neighborhood bully Assef (Nicholas Karimi) begins picking on Hassan. Amir’s family belongs to the dominant Pashtun majority, who are Sunni Muslims, while his best friend is his father’s servant’s son Hassan (Andrei Costin), who belongs to the Hazara ethnic group and Shi’a Muslim minority.
TABLA BEATS HAZARA TV
All the same, the book’s enduring popularity should ensure a healthy audience for this respectful adaptation, with reading groups and school parties likely to boost ticket sales.īookish Amir (British TV actor Ben Turner) is an only child growing up in 1970s Afghanistan with his wealthy widower father Baba (Emilio Doorgasingh). The prose of Hosseini’s novel is here, but not the poetry. Though faithful and dutiful, this over-earnest adaptation has few of the stylistic flourishes and emotional epiphanies that elevate middlebrow literature into great theater.
It is perhaps significant that Giles Croft’s production, which has finally arrived in London with most of its key cast intact, took so long to secure a West End berth.