Hend's Reviews for A Thousand Splendid suns
• The Washington Post's famous Theater critic Peter Marks- who was for years the NY Times drama critic:
Mariam (the extraordinary Hend Ayoub) ...As for Ayoub’s Mariam: it’s a movingly permeable performance, the phases of her exhaustion and defensiveness, suffering and courage all etched in her features.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/in-a-thousand-splendid- suns-a-searing-indictment-of-the-talibans-treatment-of-women/2020/01/27/d297ce30- 4051-11ea-aa6a-083d01b3ed18_story.html
Hend is one of DCMTA’s 2020 staff favorites in outstanding performances:
• Hend Ayoub delivers a scorching performance as Mariam...Ayoub invests the role with a level of passion rarely seen on the stage today. She radiates hope and joy.
https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2020/04/08/dcmta-spring-2020-staff-favorites-
outstanding-performances-in-a-professional-production/
• Ayoub gives a standout performance as Rasheed's long-suffering first wife Mariam, and beautifully captures the raw emotion required by the role.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/washington-dc/article/BWW-Review-A-THOUSAND-SPLENDID-SUNS-at-Arena-Stage-20200126
• reluctantly agrees to hold her rival’s infant. Throughout the show, actress Ayoub moves masterfully between portraying stony silence then radiant mother-love, between abject fear and finally ultimate courage.
One of the most touching scenes was when actress Ayoub,
https://dctheatrescene.com/2020/01/27/review-a-thousand-splendid-suns-at-arena-stage- a-harrowing-afghan-drama/
• Ayoub as Mariam is incredibly powerful even in her silence. Watching Ayoub perform is a master class in being a grounded actor, even in moments of high intensity and chaos. Her physicality as Mariam was at times very heavy, which was in stark contrast to the moments where she seemed light as a feather.
https://www.afro.com/afghan-women-prevail-in-war-torn-country/
• Ayoub’s Mariam, who seems to embody the stolid and worn long-married wife, is fantastic in these flashbacks, suddenly inhabiting an eager and exuberant child who adores her neglectful father.
https://www.thebeaconnewspapers.com/powerful-play-highlights-female-strength/
• In powerful and touching performances, Ayoub and Katrib capture their characters’ often raw, heightened emotions without a hint of actorly self- consciousness, making Mariam and Laila utterly believable. They switch rapidly and seamlessly between their older and younger selves. They handle more tender moments beautifully too, as when Mariam has a monologue about dreams for the future reminiscent of the spirit of West Side Story’s “Somewhere.”
https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2020/01/25/a-thousand-splendid-suns-at-arena-women- fighting-their-forever-war/
• The role encompasses an enormous range, and Ayoub is a master of every inch of it. She moves seamlessly back and forth in time, from the unwanted child who thinks her father will take her in, to the embittered wife, then surrogate mother, protector and ultimately sister-friend.
https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2020/01/30/behind-the-lines-a-talk-with-hend-ayoub-the- actor-whose-performance-in-a-thousand-splendid-suns-radiates-fury-hope-and-joy-at- arena-stage/
• Mariam (a superb Hend Ayoub) nurse the injured teenager....It is a heartbreaking moment, and Ayoub’s grace and heroism is winningly convincing.
https://pgs.thesentinel.com/2020/02/04/the-emotional-history-of-afghan-women- exploded-in-a-thousand-splendid-suns/
•
Mariam, portrayed most engagingly by the wonderfully earthbound Hend
Ayoub (Yale Rep’s Kiss)
https://t2conline.com/arena-stages-a-thousand-splendid-suns-shines-scorchingly-hot-on- these-daring-afghan-women/
•
forces that lead their fellow actors valiantly. In violent scenes that were almost too difficult to watch, Ayoub and Katrib refuse to shy away from the rawness of those moments
Actors Hend Ayoub (Mariam) and Mirian Katrib (Laila) are incredible
https://www.washingtoninformer.com/splendid-suns-production-an-unflinching-triumph/