Love Is Not New in This Country

German-Syrian actress and director Corinne Jaber worked hard to achieve what many thought was an impossible task: to bring together a company of Afghan actors to stage a Dari-speaking production of Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour's Lost'. Here she describes how – the Radio 3 drama Love Is Not New in This Country - came about.

It had to be a comedy, I was told. It was almost a threat, since I realized from the intensity of the look in Nabi's eyes that anything else would make all the actors get up and leave.

So it became 'Love's Labours Lost', simply because there was an equal amount of male and female parts in it, which to me was imperative.

But everything seemed to be against us.

There is no translation I was told. Nobody will understand Shakespeare. There are no actresses. If ever ever I do find one or two they won't act together with men, let alone be in the same room them. As for an audience, I will never get a mixed audience.

On top of the dangers of performing such an event in a public space, there will be no security clearance, so no foreign audience either.

'Why don't I', I was told, 'just do a male version of the play for a local male audience?'

There seemed to be only obstacles, which is what drove me to do it. Maybe I was stubborn, maybe mad, possibly a mixture of both.

And of course all those difficulties were there and had to be overcome on a daily basis - finding a translation in Iran in Farsi and translating it into Dari, finding women who could act and who were willing to interact with men, and finding men who were willing to accept the women and not just give orders but listen to them.

Then there was getting everyone to come to rehearsals and not only show up as they pleased, getting actors to understand what they were saying and not change the text randomly if they felt there were any allusions to carnal love for example, and getting actors to remember what they'd rehearsed the day before - the list seemed endless and forever growing.

Maybe the most difficult part of the work was to get everyone to leave the external warfare outside our garden, and to listen and find out what was really going on, when someone would stop looking at me and say to our translator Qais, "Tell Corinne Jan that..."

I wanted them to take ownership of the play, so that it became their piece of work and not just something that had once again been imposed upon them. It was their act of freedom, not mine. I realised that freedom is something that cannot be given to you, but that you have to grab and take and make yours.

The miracle happened on the day of the performance in Babur's garden. Before the show, the actors all hugged each other and the women danced for the men as a warm-up and they even decided to share a dressing room with the men, giving the women the right to go first.

It all just happened in the end - and I don't know how.

It fell into place in the most unexpected way and we had a touching, fragile and most unusual show born out of the most difficult circumstances. And that is, I think, the great magic of this adventure, and in the end of the Afghan people.

'Love Is Not New in This Country' is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 9pm on Sunday 4 February.