Review: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Young Vic)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Many plays, books, and even films have titles dripping in mystery and metaphor, their name seemingly nothing to do with the themes and ideas being out across to their audiences – others, of course, tell you exactly what you will be seeing before you’ve turned a page, pressed play, or had the lights go down in the auditorium. Opting to go in largely blind to Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, you’ll forgive my surprise when the opening sequence proved that both things could be true at once, in a riveting and politically sharp UK premiere at the Young Vic.

Bengal Tiger begins, you may be less shocked now than ever to learn, at the Baghdad Zoo. After the recent escape of a captive group of lions – all named Leo, we’re soon told – two American soldiers find themselves alternating between the boredom of this locale and the thrill of recent victory. “Saddam’s kid” has fallen to their side, and Tom delights in telling Kev about the spoils he has gained from the war in Iraq, chiefly a pistol and a toilet seat both made seemingly of pure gold. Worked up and ready to move on towards newfound wealth, Tom finds himself taunting the titular beast – a hand is torn off, shots are fired, and the Tiger becomes the first of several ghosts we follow throughout the play.

The Tiger, I should note, has been equally as engaged as the two humans, not that they would ever know that. Despite hurling obscenities at the soldiers in answer to their taunts, the Tiger speaks chiefly to the audience, outlining the circumstances leading to captivity and the ongoing confusion of wandering the Baghdad streets after death – tigers, she tells us, are all atheists, and yet some higher power seems firmly at play. Rajiv Joseph’s script cleverly positions the Tiger as both character and commentator, allowing us an insight into the lives and failings of the other characters without the weighing down that comes with sharing their same human foibles. The Tiger has no side in the war, has made no choices based on belief or emotion, and so is uniquely positioned to pass judgement on those she follows.

Of course, the proper pronouns for the Tiger may vary depending on when you see the production. David Threlfall was initially cast, and what he could bring to future performances only deepens the show’s inherent rewatchability. Until further notice, including the daunting task of covering the show’s press night, Kathryn Hunter has stepped in to provide a magnificent performance in the title role. Given how swiftly she flew into the part, it’s unsurprising that screens over the central block of stalls seating scroll briskly through the text, slowing down only for the Tiger’s parts – what is surprising is how little Hunter seems to acknowledge them, or else how convincingly she seems not to, delivering her lines thoughtfully, with such character and presence that she could well be making them up on the spot.

Hunter’s is the early standout of a fine set of performances, and certainly she is the strongest player in the show’s first act. Patrick Gibson and Arinzé Kene do well with their braggadocious, men’s men roles, but find much deeper connection in the second act. Kene, his all-American Kev so strikingly distinct from his work in Alterations earlier this year, proves to be an actor of incredible range, not only in his career but within this one performance. His fluctuations between a bro-ish, boisterous character and an effective, frightening presence lend the role power and pathos, and despite the striking differences he never ceases to feel like the same person.

Gibson, as now-one-handed Tom, brings his own emotional journey to a more compelling arc in the second act, after being convincingly obnoxious leading up to the initial incident. There is a precarious but well-handled balance between humour and tragic awkwardness in Gibson’s character attempting to explain to a young Iraqi prostitute that he merely needs her to help fill in for his more frequently utilised hand, a sequence which reintroduces an earlier-sidelined translator into the narrative. Ammar Haj Ahmad brings a fantastic blend of embarrassment and judgement to the scene, and does a masterful job of shifting this into the growing resentment and disgust that bring about a powerful and pitiful moment.

Director Omar Elerian moves his cast about the stage wonderfully, both defining areas as certain rooms when called for and treating Rajha Shakiry’s strikingly bare but deceptively detailed stage into an enclosure for the entire cast. The Tiger’s own enclosure is done away with simply by having her tire-wing pulled away from the stage, but this allows for Elerian to remind us how constantly observed everyone is, and how she is now the freest among them. Jackie Shemesh finalises this frightening idea, with lights that are at all times either that bit too dim or aggressively bright – comfort is not something allowed to these characters, and this expands into the world around them.

Both fight and intimacy direction comes courtesy of Ruth Cooper-Brown, tasked with helping to construct both chilling violence and purposefully uncomfortable sexual favours. With a world so harsh and cruel surrounding these characters, Cooper-Brown’s work proves particularly invaluable, and allows for stirring, unsettling moments without anything excessively graphic being required. That brings me to the final standout of the small cast, with Sayyid Aki taking on the role of Uday Hussein for a brief but memorable period – in many other shows, his jovial and mocking portrayal could be hard to stomach, but in the world which Elerian and Cooper-Brown have helped shape, his magnetic-yet-repulsive performance feels right at home.

Difficult to stomach in places, perhaps too politically-minded in some places for some viewers, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo finds a delicate balance between the literal and metaphorical, the factual and the fantastical, and between humanity as we recognise it and the horrors we have all been made to behold. It’s challenging, it’s stirring, and it’s often surprisingly funny – it’s a show about a captive tiger, and about how no one else in that time was ever any less a prisoner.

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo plays at the Young Vic until January 31^st

For tickets and information visit https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/bengal-tiger-the-baghdad-zoo

Photos by Ellie Kurttz