Theater Review: A Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams

 Photo Caption (l-r): Robin Williams, Brad Fleischer and Glenn Davis. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

What We Have Here, Is a Failure to Communicate
By Lauren Yarger
It’s a beautiful topiary garden, with plants and animals lovingly sculpted by a creator in whom hope springs eternal. Or it is an Eden gone bad, destroyed by man’s greed, lust and stupidity and overseen by a cruel and uncaring creator.

The scene (designed by Derek McLane) is 2003 Baghdad in Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer-Prize nominated play A Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo starring Robin Williams in its Broadway premiere, but its message isn’t exactly clear.

Whether we’re witnessing the characters’ lack of ability to understand each other, their futile attempts to talk with God or the playwright’s own inability to get his message across, despite a lot of repetative dialogue, one thing becomes very clear: we have a big failure to communicate here.

Let’s start with the Tiger, played by a burly-bearded Williams. He’s hungry, but the stupid American Marines, Tom (Glenn Davis) and Kev (Brad Fleisher). on patrol in the zoo just taunt him while Tom shares stories of how he looted a toilet seat and a pistol, both made of gold, when he was part of the squad that raided the palace and killed the two sons of Saddam Hussein. He’s going to cash in and live easy when he goes back stateside.

The Tiger finally decides to use a communication technique that will get noticed: he bites off Tom’s hand. Kev shoots the Tiger and for the rest of the play, the animal wanders around the streets in a sort of purgatory pondering the meaning of life and wondering whether he had been wrong to be an atheist. For tigers, heaven and hell simply mean hungry or not hungry, he says.

But what if he was wrong? He had eaten two children, he admits, but he had thought the act was driven by primordial urge rather than cruelty. The regret he now feels brings a need for atonement. He tries to communicate with God by screaming and cursing and demanding to know where he is, but receives no answer. (My guess? God has earplugs in to tune out the bombardment of “F” and other curse words and strong sexual language that dominate the play’s dialogue throughout.)

The Tiger haunts Kev, who loses the gun in a night raid where he is unable to communicate with the Iraqis he’s interrogating (multiple roles are played by Necar Zadegan, Hrach Titizian and Sheila Vand throughout the play). The prolonged scene in which the family screams in Arabic at each other and at Kev is meant to show us how frightening and difficult relations are when we are unable to communicate. What it really does, however, is annoy.

Not much help bridging the communication gap is Musa (Arian Moayed), the creator of the once-beautiful topiary garden at the Husseins' palace, now employed by the US Military as an interpreter. He is haunted by his former boss, Uday Hussein (in a spot-on repulsive portrayal by Titizian), who carries the severed head of his brother.

Uday gloats about raping and torturing Musa’s little sister, whom the gardener had brought to the palace to admire his artistic creations.

Musa, urgently tries to communicate that he’s an artist, not a terrorist, even though he decides to trade the gold pistol for arms and kills Tom, leaving him where, you guessed it, he in purgatory/hell/or whatever this is supposed to be .

At one point the Tiger quips that he knows Dante. Of course he does, I thought not too long after. We’re sitting in one of the rings of hell right now waiting for something – anything positive– to happen in this play. But like those who enter the gate, we are forced to abandon all hope, just like all of these really, totally, unbelievably unlikable characters have.

And I so wanted to like the Tiger. Williams, whose name on the marquis is the primary reason the play has landed on Broadway (though I don’t have a clue how it ended up a Pulitzer finalist), executes the role adequately, but he hardly gets a chance to show what he can do. Director Moises Kaufman keeps him chained. Williams doesn’t sound or move like a tiger. In fact, if the characters didn’t tell us, in between many “F” words, that he was a tiger, we might not know and assume him to be a metaphor for the Iraqi people. Then again, in this play, maybe be is. I'm not sure. While I didn’t expect to see Williams’ trademark humor or improv skills, given the subject matter, allowing this talented actor to imbue the animal with some more personality would have been welcome.

One woman at intermission worriedly asked her companion, “What is this supposed to be? What is he supposed to represent?” She wasn’t alone with her questions. A number of people left either during the show or at intermission (the large number of school children apparently on class trips stayed, however, making me glad that the days of my going to the school and questioning why, of all the wonderful, educational shows on Broadway, they would choose this one, are over since my kids are grown).

Politically correct, the school officials would, no doubt, tell me it’s necessary for children to be broadminded in their approach to different cultures, to question America’s involvement in war, to entertain different thoughts about the afterlife. But is that what this play communicates? I’m not so sure.

The message I came away with was that man is driven by greed, stupidity and lust, that we are in control of our own fate and that eventually we will mess everything up because we’re driven by lust, stupidity and greed. And, by the way, there is no God who can help us out of the cycle whether we’re an innocent child or a vicious tiger.

I just didn't like wallowing around in that depressing message for two hours, however, because I know it’s not completely true. There are many caring people who reach out to and welcome those who are different. There also are a lot of brave – and smart – American soldiers serving in Iraq.

And lastly, there is a way out. The playwright’s story is an old one. It’s found in the fall of man in the bible. Cheer up, though. God does exist and has a plan so we don’t have to stay trapped hopeless in the fallen garden. The happy ending is called the Gospel.

Begal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo plays through July 3 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 West 46th St., NYC. For tickets, call 212-307-4100 or 800-755-4000.

Christians might also like to know:

• Violence and blood (with some of the coolest special effects for blood I have seen, though)
• Sexual dialogue
• Sexual activity
• Lord's name taken in vain