Susan Granger’s review of “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” (Richard Rodgers Theatre, 2011)
As Robin Williams paces back and forth in his battered cage, the first 20 minutes of Brooklyn playwright Rajiv Joseph’s dark dramedy crackles with energy and anticipation of danger. After all, the lions have escaped from their habitat, only to be gunned down as they roamed the streets. Then it happens. The grumpy, ill-fated Tiger is shot by one of the U.S. Marines guarding his cage. It all goes downhill and into the afterlife from there.
Making his Broadway acting debut as the Tiger, grizzled, gray-bearded Williams, dressed in khakis, laments, “I get so stupid when I get hungry.” He’s surly, savage and seriously subdued as the ghostly, foul-mouthed voice of philosophical reason, slyly commenting on the deadly cruelty that surrounds him, never resorting to the manic comedic shtick that made him famous.
The Tiger’s first caustic casualties are the two gung-ho soldiers assigned to patrol the Baghdad Zoo in 2003, shortly after the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Cocky Tom (Glenn Davis) and lame-brained Kev (Brad Fleisher) are intrigued by the gleaming, gold-plated pistol that Tom looted during a lethal raid on Saddam’s sons Qusay and Uday Hussein’s palace. But the coveted weapon ends up in the hands of the Hussein brothers’ former gardener, Musa (Arian Moayed), who now works as a military translator. Musa is haunted by sadistic Uday (Hrach Titizian, along with what happened to his sister, Hadia (Sheila Vand). Plus there’s the Husseins’ gold-plated toilet seat, which Tom also stole, winding up with a leper woman (Necar Zadegan). And so it goes, as the senseless, predatory violence continues to escalate.
Director Moises Kaufman, who guided the play through its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles, traverses the war zone carefully, handling Rajiv Joseph’s somber, episodic, Pulitzer Prize-nominated narrative with its heavy-handed, anti-war commentaries about how the alienation and aftershocks affect both soldiers and civilians. Derek McLane has designed a simple yet elegant set, amplified by David Lander’s lighting design and costumer David Zinn. While this bizarre psychological introspection is briefly provocative, it soon becomes tedious as its quirky appeal quickly palls, finding only the most tolerant audience members still in attendance for the curtain calls.