“An acting masterclass so good it’s hard to watch”
Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize back in 2010, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is particularly famous for the NYC production featuring Robin Williams in his broadway debut. Written by Rajiv Joseph and set in 2003 war-torn Iraq, this play delves into the cruelty of humanity and the futility of war.
Intermingling the real and the imagined, the story follows two US marines, Tom (Patrick Gibson) and Kev (Arinzé Kene), as they navigate a fraught deployment in Iraq. They are joined by the omnipresent figure of a Bengal Tiger, shot by Kev and now doomed to wander the obliterated streets as a ghost.
With a last minute drop-out by the original actor David Threlfall, a superb Kathryn Hunter takes his place. She brings a nonchalant comedy to the role, musing on the existence of God and offsetting some of the extreme violence in the play.
Delving into the horrors of Iraq, Joseph thoroughly explores both the brutality of the Hussein dictatorship and the terror of US invasion. Through the complex character of the translator Musa (Ammar Haj Ahmad), the audience can see the ‘hallucinating hope of people done with tyranny but unsure how dreams become reality’. The impossible situation of always trying to stay out of trouble and as a result always ending up ‘working for the oppressor’.
Unexpectedly amusing, Joseph has written a masterful piece, using the comic figure of the Tiger to guide the audience through a narrative that goes from bad to worse. The play itself teeters on torture porn, perhaps unnecessarily graphic in its efforts to fully explain the trauma of the Iraqi people under the Hussein regime. If nothing else Joseph makes something clear; when it comes to war those who suffer the most will always be women.
Direction by Omar Elerian is masterful, teasing out the essential comic moments of the script. Rajha Shakiry has created a versatile set, with a vast concrete expanse easily transforming from tiger pen to psych ward to destroyed garden. The ensemble are exceptional, there’s no need for translation of the Arabic segments to understand the pain, anger or even the comedy.
Sayyid Aki is a disgustingly likeable Uday Hussein, the audience is constantly torn between laughing and shrinking away in horror when he speaks. This feeling of uncertainty plagues the entire piece, as while there are jump scares, extreme gore and graphic descriptions of sexual violence, there are also more laugh-out-loud moments than in the average stand-up set.
A precarious play that teeters slightly too close for comfort, it is an unsettling reminder of the horrors these characters’ real-life counterparts continue to face, man woman and animal.