Last one this week: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

[skynyc]

No this isn't a one man show starring Robin Williams. It's a serious indictment of the Iraqi War, deeply intense and almost unrelentingly dark, even with some humor.

 

Lots of spoilers to follow:

 

Williams plays the tiger in the Baghdad Zoo which is occupied by American forces soon after the invasion in 2003. After being shot by a Marine in the first five minutes, Williams' tiger is the philosophic ghost who wanders around looking for meaning of life and death in a society where the two of them intermingle disquietingly. And while he doesn't run off with on his trademark ad-libs, his performance is nice because his portrayal is so different from the human characters around him.

 

And just because a character is killed (or even long dead) doesn't mean that they don't get a lot of stage time. The deceased Uday Hussein (son of Saddam) struts around carrying the head of his dead brother haunting Musa, the Iraqi translator for the Americans for being a traitor to his country...even though Musa used to work directly for Uday and was forced to watch the rape and murder of his younger sister at Uday's hands.

 

And then there are the two young marines whose portrayal of our fighting forces is almost more offensive than anything in Book of Mormon. Too simple, too stupid and too eager, they (hopefully exaggeratedly) present the kids that are enlisting in our nation's armed forces.

 

I don't think this show makes a tremendous overarching statement about war in general, but maintains a very focussed look at this particular war, at this particular time. And no one, Iraqi or American, looks very good under the spotlight.

[foxy]

Now I want to see it even though Robin Williams usually irritates me.