Rajiv Joseph's elegantly layered new drama "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" tussles with those notions as seen through the eyes of an Iraqi gardener (now a U.S. military interpreter), a pair of U.S. Marines, Uday Hussein and a Bengal tiger, played with remarkable depth and flair by Robin Williams. The star turn--and Broadway debut for the comedian--don't detract from the delicate language in Joseph's text. The Williams name will surely draw in audiences, but all the better. This play deserves packed houses and media attention.Set in Baghdad in 2003 after the raid of the Hussein Palace, "Bengal Tiger" lays bare the effects of the invasion for both sides. There is profound psychological stress on the workaday Marines from Main Street USA and intricate repercussions on Iraqi life, all in a shattered world that's equally as foreign to all.
And then there's the tiger.
The play opens with Williams in a cage, stood sentry by two Marines. The lions have escaped, but our tiger is still stuck behind bars, kept from what he was "destined" to be--a ferocious predator from another land. With this orange fur with bold stripes (as it's collectively imagined--there is no animal costuming), the tiger is utterly alien in Baghdad.
Joseph peppers the line with humor and Williams ekes the levity out of each beat in his familiarly brilliant manner. Each of the seven actors in the cast is excellent, with Arian Moayed as the tormented interpreter, who lived through the degradation of working for the Hussein family and how lives a less tormented (but perhaps equally as empty) life in the service of a foreign army.
The drama explores the the beautiful burden of the human experience, or rather, the living experience--animals included. Of longing for freedom and never quite reaching it. Of the weight of guilt and the folly of sought redemption. Our titular tiger finally escapes from his cage, only to be shot and left roaming around Baghdad in an ethereal purgatory. Not unlike the rest of us.
Photo (c) Carol Rosegg. Robin Williams, Brad Fleischer and Glenn Davis
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"Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" is on Broadway through July 3, 2011. Break out and see it: http://www.BengalTigerOnBroadway.com
