A Bengal tiger, starving and abandoned in its bomb-shattered pen at the Baghdad Zoo, became an unlikely casualty of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This stark, real-life incident has been transformed into a Pulitzer Prize-nominated theatrical journey, where the slain beast returns as a philosophical specter to haunt a city in collapse.
The play, which first emerged from a graduate school workshop, initially met with silence. Its author, however, persisted. Years later, a reading for a different audience ignited immediate and powerful resonance. The work has since been staged on Broadway and is now receiving a major new production in London, featuring a celebrated cast.
The drama uses the tiger’s perspective not to recount historical events, but to launch a profound inquiry. From beyond death, the animal wanders a hellscape, grappling with questions of divinity, purpose, and the very nature of creation amidst the rubble. The concept provides a unique entry point into the complexities of the conflict, one that bypasses direct political narration for something more elemental.
The writer’s personal history informed the work’s compassionate scope. Having lived in a predominantly Muslim community abroad, he found the anti-Islamic sentiment that surged after 9/11 deeply troubling. While feeling unqualified to write directly about the soldier’s experience or Iraqi life, the “confusions of a wild, primal beast” offered a metaphorical pathway into the shared trauma and moral ambiguity of war.
The play deliberately avoids simple villainy. While it does not shy away from depicting the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime or the chaos of the invasion, it extends a measure of understanding to the American soldiers, portrayed as confused young men thrust into an impossible situation by distant policy. This nuanced approach has forged a strong connection with military veterans, some of whom have found their own experiences reflected in the production.
This exploration of desperate masculinity in the shadow of overwhelming power is a recurring theme in the playwright’s body of work. From guards tasked with an unthinkable duty in imperial India to the disillusioned young assassins who triggered a global war, his characters often inhabit a fraught space where male identity is tested by extreme circumstances.
The writer’s own mixed heritage—feeling neither entirely of one world nor another—has, in his view, been an asset. It fosters a natural inclination to inhabit varied perspectives, a crucial skill for a dramatist navigating an artistic climate increasingly preoccupied with strict boundaries of personal experience.
By resurrecting a forgotten tiger, the play gives voice to the silent suffering of war, asking timeless questions about guilt, grace, and what remains when the bombs fall silent.