In history’s blackest moments, humour is often the witness’s coping mechanism. “A bizarre hybrid between stand-up, theatre and a monologue”, is how British playwright Henry Naylor describes his play Afghanistan is Not Funny, recently staged in Hyderabad, as part of the Manam Theatre Festival. Written, directed and performed by Naylor, it is the play’s first Asian tour. Its nuances and insights were born out of his experience in conflict-ridden Afghanistan in 2002, after its US invasion post-9/11.
The British comedian had visited the country with photographer Sam Maynard to research a show, accompanied by their fixer, a doctor moonlighting as a guide. Humour is just the garnish; Naylor takes comedy to an alternate dimension where fear, deprivation and death are companions. “My experiences in Afghanistan resulted in writing the fringe play Finding Bin Laden,” says the artiste. He and Maynard spent a little over a week in Kabul, and saw first-hand the destruction of a country and its people. “I was devastated to see the reality on the ground,” adds the 57-year-old. After two decades of his travel to the war-torn country, which was reclaimed by the Taliban in 2021, Naylor felt an urge to revisit his muse through his old notes and documented visuals. “We should hold governments to account,” he stresses. The corollary of this belief was Afghanistan is Not Funny.
His Afghan experiences take different shapes. They are light-hearted when he describes his encounters with the BBC’s stringer on the ground, Humayun, who takes Naylor’s criticism of the West in stride and asks him, “So, when are you leaving, sir?”, conveying both the East’s distrust of the West as well as contempt of the ordinary Afghan for the do-gooders from Britain and America. Naylor performs as many as 20 different characters in the 75-minute play. For instance, he easily slips into the persona of an American General (who was later tried for war crimes), who does not want nosy journalists to find the truth and write about the harsh realities of war.
He then details his run-in with the AK-47-wielding Mujahideen: On his search to find a “graveyard of tanks”, Naylor runs into them. The artist’s humorous take on what could have been a bone-chilling ordeal is a master class in self-deprecation. Evocative stills from Afghanistan, captured two decades ago by Maynard, play on a giant screen in the background, adding a layer of storytelling to his canvas. The last image will haunt you for a long time: A child carrying a dead baby. It proves the pointlessness of strife.
With empathy and authenticity, Naylor connects with and confides in his audience. The arc of his journey from being a comedian seeking material for his play to a war chronicler comes across emphatically. He calls it his honest attempt to showcase war. The proposal dovetails with his personal story. He says, “Through this play, I relate to my life. From a comedian who went around making jokes about real-life world events to becoming someone who draws attention to topical issues, it captures the arc of my transformation. And in the process, if it helps issues reach more people, why not?”