On the evening of September 18, 2003, about six months after the start of the war in Iraq, an American soldier shot and killed a Bengal tiger at the city zoo in Baghdad. The Army was hosting a barbecue designed to boost morale, and the zoo was chosen as the setting even though, thanks to war and looting, it had become what one reporter described as a “decrepit collection of dirty cages and sad-looking animals.”
When we first see the tiger, he’s being guarded by Tom (Walter Owen Briggs) and Kev (JJ Phillips), two U.S. soldiers on “zoo duty.” The cat is cool and sardonic, the men jumpy and erratic. When Tom tries to feed the animal a Slim Jim through the bars of his cage, he gets his hand bitten off, and Kev promptly shoots the beast. “You get hungry, you get stupid, you get shot and die,” the tiger says in summation. “And then it’s over. Curtains. Ka-boom.”
Good question. A preponderance of spirits is a good metaphor not only for the great number of dead that wars generate, but also for the fruitlessness of attempting to erase the past through “regime change.” Yet the dead overpower the living in Joseph’s play, leaving it in a zombified state, drained of urgency and purpose.
Through 3/17: Tue-Wed and Fri 7:30 PM, Thu and Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM, check with theater for exceptions, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan, 312-337-0665, lookingglasstheatre.org, $36-$70.
