Thursday, April 13, 2023
Seattle Opera’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and the need for more diverse stories onstage
The Seattle Times: You may have heard the sentiment “no community is a monolith” before. To put it simply, no matter how you group people, be it by age or race or gender, one individual in that group can’t hope or be expected to represent the experiences of the group as a whole. This is amplified when it comes to theater, where, for many marginalized communities fighting for their place onstage, only a handful of stories wind up being told to a wide audience.
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I love Khaled Hosseini’s works and have read both ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, both of which are heart-wrenching yet deeply touching. I had no idea that the latter is now being put on stage at Seattle Opera (I’m less shocked to find it staged by Seattle Rep) and I do think it is a beautiful story to be told through an opera. This article raises an interesting and important question about the production's timing and its potential effect on the Afghanistan community in Washington. I honestly don’t know if there is a right answer. On one hand, I agree with Afzali’s point of view about implicitly reinforcing negative stereotypes towards Afghans, especially after the Kabul airport attack in 2021. On the other hand, it is also valuable to tell stories about other cultures and present the harm of domestic violence as well as other relevant issues. Both of these are very valid statements and it is a shame that Afzali found herself having to leave her position, but I believe that conversations like this will be happening more in the future. Though it should NOT pose as an obstruction to having more diverse stories being told on stage.
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