Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Young Vic
★★★★☆

RAJIV Joseph’s Pulitzer nominated play is firmly embedded in the immediate after effects of the Iraq war with the American occupation of Baghdad, yet it has a surreal quality, or sense of magic realism, as the nightmare carnage physically haunts those still alive.

The very human tiger, shot in self-defence by the soldiers protecting her, plagues her killer and roams the city making laconic observations on the world she knows, and the nature of an unresponsive god that could have created such a savage creature as herself and the gardens where she hunts.

At the centre of this complex, brutal yet often amusing play are three contrasting characters brought together by circumstance. Tom and Kev are naive, uneducated soldiers tasked with guarding the zoo, supported by Musa, an Iraqi translator and former gardener of Uday Hussein.

For each of them, harassed by the spirits of the dead that gnaw at their personal suffering, the horrors and divisive opportunities of war means any morality is sacrificed for personal gain or survival.

Director Omar Elerian’s dynamic and thought provoking production still has to settle in and find its feet. Although outstanding as a performer, Kathryn Hunter’s late replacement of David Threlfall as the tiger restrains her stand-alone performance, while sections of Iraqi dialogue and the noise and chaos of war all add to the play’s confusion, sometimes to the detriment of the overall rhythm and shape of the production.

Patrick Gibson as Tom and Arinze Kene as Kev, the bewildered US soldiers, more victims than victors, give strong performances hiding behind crude banter and bravado while unable to grasp the whys or wherefores of their doomed roles. Yet it is Ammar Haj Ahmad’s performance as the tragic figure of Musa, their verbally abused entrepreneur haunted by his bullet riddled former employer, who gives the most telling portrayal of an outsider unable to steer a self-determined or moral passage through a senselessly cruel world.

Rajha Shakiry’s war-torn set, a ravaged garden dominated by an image of Saddam Hussein and the American flag, provides an effective and atmospheric space for seamless scene changes and the split action sequences that still need to fully find their dramatic clarity.

This is an adventurous and highly stimulating production of a fascinating play about the absurdity of a god in a barbaric world that will hopefully shift into top gear during the run.

Runs until January 31. Box office: 020 7922 2922, youngvic.org