Playwright Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo takes an alternative approach to the Iraq War. Under the direction of Claudia Barrie, Mad March Hare Theatre Company and Red Line Productions give shape to this thought-provoking play at the Old Fitz.
Stranded between life and death, this is a battlefield with no front and no back. There is a surprising amount of humour throughout Joseph’s play, concerned with the instabilities of Iraq as well as the stain of imperialism that won’t wipe away.
Kev (Josh Anderson) and Tom (Stephen Multari) are two arrogant American marines tasked with guarding a tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. When things go awry and shots are fired, strange things start happening. The complexities of the conflict take their toll on the marines, along with an Iraqi gardener-turned-translator named Musa (Andrew Lindqvist) and, of course, a philosophising tiger (Maggie Dence).
Dence plays the tiger with dry wit and a cat-like physicality. Her cynical musings come out as a throaty growl. It’s the existential angst of the tiger that touches the Iraq conflict like a hot knife – Dence asks: “Why am I here and why aren’t I gone?” And as the play unfolds, ghosts populate the streets of Baghdad, unable to be properly freed from the carnage of war.
Bengal Tiger is powerfully acted, though Anderson is particularly strong – and hilarious – as the dopey, combat-affected Kev (think Jesse from Breaking Bad). Particularly interesting is the way his (and the tiger’s) afterlife enlightenment fails to bring any comprehension of the conflict – it remains opaque. In this sense, knowledge brings no relief and nowhere to go. Plaguing the imagination of Musa is the flamboyant and depraved Uday Hussein (Tyler De Nawi), summoned through the tyrant’s looted, gold-plated possessions, and his younger sister, Hadia (Megan Smart).
Overall, the division between life and death is managed effectively, thanks in part to a visually striking design by Benjamin Brockman and Isabel Hudson. This is not a didactic play with neat metaphors, nor is a play that revels in its own philosophical commentary. The action is fierce, even gut-wrenching, and the humour is twisted.
Ultimately, Bengal Tiger is a sketch of suggestive comparisons and thoughtful parallels that hover momentarily – mind they don’t dissipate when you leave the theatre.
Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo is playing at the Old Fitz Theatre until Saturday May 6.
