Director Corinne Jaber shared her experiences of bringing a Shakespeare play to Afghanistan for the first time since the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1979 with Boston University students and faculty at the George Sherman.
Jaber’s lecture, “Negotiating the Arts in Afghanistan,” was attended by 10 students, and hosted by the BU Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations.
Jaber’s 2005 production of “Love’s Labor Lost” was performed by an entirely Afghani cast, quite a feat in itself, as finding Afghani women to act in the play proved difficult.
“When I proposed Shakespeare, people told me it was too complicated because there was no translation and no women to act,” Jaber said. “However, I thought there was a way to get through the obstacles.”
Jaber said she attended Munich University for theater before transferring to an acting school in Paris. She won the Moliere Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in “Une bête sur lat lune,” and began directing performances four years later.
In 2005, Jaber said she traveled to Afghanistan to begin work on her production of Shakespeare’s production “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” which was performed in Kabul. Her two challenges proved to be getting hold of the only translation of the play and finding women actors, whose fathers, husbands or brothers would allow them to act.
“I learned two things on my first day in Afghanistan. It is important to be accepted in their society and to just go with the flow,” Jaber said. “You can’t go in with a set schedule, the way you work in the West has to be put aside.”
She also directed the contemporary play “Sisters” in 2008, which starred seven Afghan actresses and toured in both Kabul and Paris.
In a society where men and women live separately, Jaber said her productions challenged the performers not only to coexist in the same room but also learn to act together.
“It was a process just trying to get them in the same room and sit closer to one another,” Jaber said. “Eventually, the women would look at the men while acting and they ended up sharing the dressing rooms.”
Chair of the BU English Department William Carroll arranged Jaber’s series of lectures after he discovered her work over the Internet.
“After editing a scholarly edition of “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” I contacted Corinne over the phone and conducted several interviews with her,” Carroll said. “Eventually, we got the money to have her come speak here. She is going to speak with graduate acting students before she leaves.”
Michael Carroll, the administrator of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, said he has been serving since 2006 to help the Institute act as an interdisciplinary meeting point for diverse scholars across Muslim regions.
“As such, tonight’s event fits very well into the Institute’s purview,” Carroll said. “Additionally, the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies is based at Boston University, so this event also serves that institute’s mission to reinvigorate scholarship in and on Afghanistan.”
Jaber said she is planning on returning to Afghanistan and working on a new Afghan version of “Comedy of Errors.”
“Shakespearian productions can be brought anywhere,” Jaber said. “It’s universal and it cannot be linked to any specific culture. I also hope that I can create a bit of awareness and perspective of Afghanistan that’s different from the newspaper and television.”
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