NI Troubles play on Afghan tour

By Natalie Lindo
BBC News

In the play the central character is visited by ghosts from the past

It was written to explore ways of dealing with Northern Ireland's troubled past, now the same play has travelled thousand of miles to Afghanistan where it is being used to examine the legacy of the warn-torn country's own conflict.

'AH 6905' was written by Londonderry man Dave Duggan and following an adaption, is currently on a tour across Afghanistan.

Dave explains that the play is written as a hospital visit, AH stand for Altnagelvin hospital and the numbers representing the years 1969 to 2005.

"We meet Danny and he's about to have an operation. Everything that's happened between 1969 and 2005 is in his body," said the playwright.

"It's in his arm, legs, back, kidneys - all the horrific incidents - and he's going to get the truth cut out of him and all those horrible incidents."

"He's visited by ghosts of the dead, he's possessed by them - manifestations of people killed in the conflicts during that time."

Conflict can be seen as a darkened room, it will be politics that will illuminate it, but at the same time theatre can open a window and let some light in Dave Duggan

In the play, the central character is desperate to know what the ghosts want.

The backdrop to the play moves from Derry to literally what's left of the Bamiyan Buddha caves, which were destroyed by the Taleban in 2001.

"In Afghanistan they have adapted it to their own circumstances - they have Taleban members, ordinary citizens, Russian soldiers, all represented by ghosts in the play," said Dave Duggan.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the United Nations backed the touring theatre project.

Playwright Dave Duggan, who is based in Derry, sent some of his scripts to a friend in Afghanistan, who was very interested in AH 6905 in particular.

"There were various conversations by e-mail about how it would be adapted and if it would be useful," he said.

"I signed the rights to a production for Afghanistan and they've done it in Dari and Pashtu, two of the biggest language groups in Afghanistan and they're running it all over."

Dave Duggan wrote AH 6905 about the conflict in Northern Ireland

Mr Duggan said the main focus of the play was "how we deal with post-conflict situations".

"But when is the right time for this when, like in Afghanistan, the conflict is still ongoing?" he asked

"If they were to wait for the 'conflict' to be over, they would be waiting a long time.

"It could be argued a bit like the Irish conflict that war and a peace process often go hand in hand."

Just like the audiences in Northern Ireland, those in the open-air theatre in Afghanistan know the pain of losing husbands and fathers - when the Taleban came to Bamiyan they were brutal and ruthless.

Qureish, for example, lost six close family members to the Taleban and had to drag the bodies into a makeshift grave on her own, as her male relatives had been killed.

The huge war cemetery is so close to the village that it is a constant reminder of what they have been through.

"People lost hope," she said. "Everyone was mentally affected, everyone has been left traumatised and depressed."

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Like Qureish many people in the audience are struggling to have their voices heard.

Dave argues that the primary focus is one of entertainment, but if people are engaged or moved then something more could be achieved.

"It's not politics it's theatre," he said. "Conflict can be seen as a darkened room, it will be politics that will illuminate it, but at the same time theatre can open a window and let some light in."