Playwright Rajiv Joseph is best known for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which was introduced to Chicago last winter by the Lookingglass Theatre Company. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2010, the play offers a dreamlike, absurd, yet morally and politically serious evocation of Dubya’s Iraq war—narrated by the title cat, who’s killed for biting off an American soldier’s hand only to find himself walking the ruined streets of Baghdad as a ghost.
Vijay is the thoroughly assimilated, 36-year-old son of a couple that emigrated from India, settled in a bad part of Cleveland, started a greasy spoon, and raised their kids in the apartment overhead. His beloved mom died in a car crash when he was 12, leaving him with a younger sister, Priya, and their tight-lipped, not-so-beloved dad, known in America as Vinnie. Her death also left him hugely pissed off. Vijay decamped for New York—and a career on Wall Street, stoking the subprime bubble—at the earliest opportunity.
Through 5/26 Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat-Sun 4 PM Silk Road Rising, Chicago Temple Building 77 W. Washington, lower level 312-857-1234 ext. 201silkroadrising.org $35
