Abstract
This chapter examines theater of the real about the Iraq War. Theater of the real focuses on personal narrative, yet this impulse to understand the lived experiences of the war seldom extends past US borders. Nevertheless, there are a handful of important theater of the real pieces that foreground Iraqi voices. Despite many rigorous studies of theater of the real and its focus on the war on terror, plays about Iraqi experiences have received scant critical attention; scholars, too, are guilty of avoiding Iraqi perspectives. This chapter looks at plays that focus on non-US, non-UK perspectives, particularly George Packer’s Betrayed, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s Aftermath, and Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire.
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Notes
- 1.
Carol Martin, “Introduction,” Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage (New York: Palgrave, 2013), 3.
- 2.
Sara Brady, Performance, Politics, and the War On Terror: “Whatever It Takes,” (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 27.
- 3.
David Hare, Stuff Happens (London: Faber and Faber, 2004).
- 4.
Qtd in Sarah Beck, “Going Outside the Wire: Service Members as Documentary Subjects in Black Watch and ReEntry,” in Performance in a Militarized Culture, eds Sara Brady and Lindsey Mantoan (New York: Routledge, 2017), 188.
- 5.
Ben Brantly, “Voices of Inexperience, Relating War’s Horrors,” The New York Times 25 Sept 2008 http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/theater/reviews/25conf.html?_r=0 (accessed 30 Sept 2013).
- 6.
Martin 3.
- 7.
Chou, Mark Chou and Roland Bleiker, “Dramatizing War: George Packer and the Democratic Potential of Verbatim Theater,” New Political Science 32.4 (2010), 562–563.
- 8.
See The List Project http://thelistproject.org/the-refugee-crisis/timeline-of-events/ (accessed 28 Nov 2017).
- 9.
George Packer, Betrayed (New York: Faber and Faber, 2008), xii.
- 10.
Kirk W. Johnson , “The Iraqi Friends We Abandoned,” The New York Times, 25 June 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/opinion/the-iraqi-friends-we-abandoned.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 (accessed 22 Sept 2017).
- 11.
Packer 96.
- 12.
- 13.
Packer ix.
- 14.
Martin “Introduction” 2.
- 15.
Michael Ignatieff, “The Way We Live Now: The Uncommitted,” The New York Times, 30 Jan 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/magazine/the-uncommitted.html?mcubz=1&_r=0 (accessed 25 Sept 2017).
- 16.
Packer ix.
- 17.
Packer 107.
- 18.
“Didn’t We Solve This One,” This American Life, 6 Jan 2017 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/607/transcript (accessed 25 Sept 2017).
- 19.
George Packer, “Our Betrayal of Syrian and Iraqi Refugees,” The New Yorker, 20 Nov 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/our-betrayal-of-syrian-and-iraqi-refugees (accessed 24 Sept 2017).
- 20.
The character Prescott quotes this line when he’s advocating for Adnan and Laith to the US ambassador. Packer Betrayed 73.
- 21.
For a full transcript of the meeting, see “President Bush Meets with Iraqi Women Leaders,” Office of the Press Secretary, 17 Nov 2003 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031117-4.html (accessed 16 Sept 2013).
- 22.
Al-Ali and Pratt, 21.
- 23.
Al-Ali and Pratt 165.
- 24.
As of the time of this writing, the treaty has still not been ratified by the US For an op-ed on the hypocrisy of the Bush administration going to war ostensibly over women’s rights, yet failing to publicly urge Congress to ratify the women’s nondiscrimination treaty, see Dina Rabadi’s “US drags feet on ratifying UN treaty on women’s rights,” 13 June 2004 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-06-13/news/0406130142_1_gender-equality-international-women-s-day-treaty (accessed 16 Sept 2013).
- 25.
“Statement on International Women’s Day,” Office of the Press Secretary, 8 Mar 2004 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040308-19.html (accessed 16 Sept 2013).
- 26.
Packer Betrayed 32.
- 27.
Packer Betrayed 33.
- 28.
Dohra Ahmed, “Not Yet Beyond the Veil: Muslim Women in American Popular Literature,” Social Text 99 27.2 (Summer 2009), 109.
- 29.
Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety: The Islamic revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 16.
- 30.
Ahmed 109.
- 31.
The piece won the 2005 Blackburn Prize Special Commendation, the Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Fellowship and the 2005 Lucille Lorten Award for best solo show and best sound design.
- 32.
Heather Raffo, 9 Parts of Desire (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 7.
- 33.
Magda Romanska, “Trauma and Testimony: Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 30 (2010), 221.
- 34.
See Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety.
- 35.
Al-Ali 170.
- 36.
Al-Ali 166.
- 37.
Ilka Saal, “Documenting War: Theatrical Interventions by Emily Mann and Heather Raffo,” Performing Gender Violence: Plays By Contemporary American Women Dramatists, eds. Barbara Ozieblo and Noelia Hernando-Real (New York: Routledge, 2012), 151.
- 38.
Al-Ali 79.
- 39.
Al-Ali 79.
- 40.
Joan Brunwasser, “Talking with Aftermath Playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen,” OpEdNews, 12 Oct 2009 https://www.opednews.com/articles/Talking-with-Jessica-Blank-by-Joan-Brunwasser-091011-409.html (accessed 28 Sept 2017).
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), xxxiii.
- 43.
Brunwasser.
- 44.
Brunwasser.
- 45.
Alice Fordham, “Iraq Slowly Recovers Its Soul,” The National, 21 Mar 2013 https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/iraq-slowly-recovers-its-soul-1.475396 (accessed 20 Nov 2017).
- 46.
Omar al-Jaffal, “Economic Curtain Closing on Iraqi Theater,” Al-Monitor, 21 Dec 2015 https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/iraq-theater-low-state-budget.html (accessed 20 Nov 2017).
- 47.
See Omar al-Jaffal, “How these Iraqi artists are breathing new life into ruined theater,” Al-Monitor, 26 Apr, 2016 https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/iraq-culture-al-rashid-theatre-renovation-world-theatre-day.html (accessed 20 Nov 2017).
- 48.
A. Al-Azraki and James Al-Shamma, Contemporary Plays from Iraq (New York: Metheun Drama, 2017), xi.
- 49.
Ibid.
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Mantoan, L. (2018). Not Just “Over There”: Theater of the Real and Iraqi Voices. In: War as Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94367-1_4
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