POW! (Play of the Week): BETRAYED

On May 1st 2003, President George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that “in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." Unfortunately this “victory” has not meant peace in Iraq, nor security for the vast majority of Iraqis (despite what the spin doctors tell us). In Betrayed, journalist George Packer chronicles the employment of two Iraqis—one Shia and one Sunni—by the US embassy in Iraq. Through interviews and Packer’s vast knowledge of Iraqi culture and politics, a portrait emerges of two men struggling to find a place in a fragmented Iraq still very much at war. These interviews provide extremely compelling and timely material for actors. Though much of the play takes the form of reminiscences, the action brings the reader agonizingly close the battered and broken lives left in the wake of a “mission accomplished”.

—Adam Sheaffer

12 characters (flexible casting)

Betrayed: A New Play, by George Packer. Faber & Faber, 2008. Paper, 128 pages. $13.00

Betrayed is opening on February 4th, 2008, at the Culture Project, 55 Mercer St., New York