The Kite Runner
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds/Touring
3 stars

THERE are numerous challenges to be overcome in  successfully staging The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel which spans the course of a friendship over 30 years.

Shifting continents, it explores themes of betrayal and loyalty against the backdrop of Afghanistan’s bloody history.

The problems in presenting these multiple layers are only partially realised in Matthew Spangler’s adaptation, which all too often places a higher price on sophistication than grit.

The sun-baked brick floor and silhouette of San Francisco’s skyline effectively set the geographic scenes but projections of patterned fabrics and trees are too elegant to capture their dust and blood.

The sanitised approach taken by director Giles Croft significantly undermines the brutal attack on Hassan (Andrei Costin), the Hazara “best friend and servant” of the wealthy Pashtun Amir (Ben Turner). Staged behind a tasteful fabric screen it reduces the incident’s brute force and almost negates the way in which it divides friends and loyalties in an already riven country.

There’s more success in evoking a sense of place with the music. Hanif Khan, seated on an ever-present carpet, plays tabla and singing bowls that suggest Afghanistan’s past even when Amir and his father (Emilio Doorgasingh) leave their homeland. As the pair enter New York, disco music pumps out and street kids in baseball caps comedically strut around.

The challenge of spanning generations is bravely met by the same actors playing both Amir and Hassan as children and adults. Costin plausibly captures the shuffling, wide-eyed innocence of youth but Turner struggles to be believable in his younger years when he jealously snatches his friend’s cowboy hat and reads aloud from a picture book.

His lack of credibility is a problem when he directly addresses the audience and tries to involve them in the storyline. In failing to absorb them into the plot, however, the production also underplays its metaphors about hope and redemption for both individuals and nations.

Tours until November 22, details: www.uktw.co.uk