A national best-selling novel and an Oscar-nominated film is now a one-man show, one that was featured at Castleton State College last week.On April 8, actor Sorab Wadia gave a performance based on Khaled Hosseini’s popular novel, “The Kite Runner.”

“The Kite Runner” tells the tearful tale of Amir, a young boy from Kabul, who befriends and eventually betrays Hassan, a strong-hearted boy who is wrongfully abused and then accused of things based on Amir’s deceipt.

Because of these actions, Amir spends the rest of his life filled with regret. The book takes you on a step-by-step journey through his life as he tries to undo the wrong he has done.

The company responsible for the stage production is the American Place Theatre of New York. This entire play is performed verbatim from this first-person narrative novel.

It started out with some music to help set the mood of the location where the story takes place. As the lights fade up, you see one man standing in the center of the stage, with just a blanket-covered stool behind him. There wasn’t much to distract you.

He belts out the first words of the novel as he takes on the role of the main character, Amir. After several minutes of the novel’s prep work to get us ready for this dramatic story, he strips himself of his dark gray zip-up vest, swapping it for a green one instead. After the quick costume change, he changes into the adolescent Amir.

Then the story really begins.

The hour-long portrayal of this critically acclaimed novel and film went by in an instant. When sitting in that squeaky auditorium chair, you would think that one man walking around a stage talking to himself would be quite dull. But to the contrary, it was more than entertaining.
Wadia gave everyone in the crowd a feeling as if they were watching the real characters of that story. He truly took on the persona of Amir. Wadia not only conquered that role, but he mimicked the other characters and perfected their mannerisms, so that the audience never felt confused as to which person it was hearing from.

With such a stunning performance, we were able to sense the sorrow, hear the humor, feel the fear and relate to all the regret that Amir was feeling. We were sucked into this characters life.

The auditorium heard no noise other than Wadia’s accented vocals. It was a quiet audience. Whether people were deeply concentrating on the story or simply taking a nap during what could’ve been – but wasn’t – another dull soundings event, the performance was so impeccable that the school should’ve considered charging people for this event. Wadia is a true professional.

If one was to paint a picture of the character Amir and how he acted, it would resemble everything that Wadia gave to this fantastic performance.

Two thumbs up.