In 2005, four years after Afghanistan was free from the merciless clutches of the Taliban, playwright Stephen Landrigan and French actress Corinne Jaber visited the country as tourists, keen on discovery. Hope was in the air, and they could feel the optimism of the people who had put their lives and dreams on hold for three decades. The duo had seen the bazaars of Mazar-e-Sharif come to life with poetry and lights on Naw Ruz, and were eager to meet Robert Kluijver, who ran the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society in Kabul. The foundation was a haven for actors, poets, musicians and other artistes who were finding their way back to normalcy. And it was here that Landrigan and Jaber thought of the unimaginable — of staging Shakespeare in theu00a0very city.

Afghanistan’s first public performance of a Shakespeare play in a quarter-century raised delighted laughter from a packed house, with most of the audience having never seen live theatre before — much less men and women acting together. AFP Photo