

Gruesome Playground Injuries/Animals Out of Paper/Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: Three Plays
Rajiv Joseph
Awards & Recognition
Finalist: 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner! 2008 Outstanding New American Play (NEA) Nominee: Six 2011 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Play
The lives of two American Marines and an Iraqi translator are forever changed by an encounter with a quick-witted tiger who haunts the streets of war-torn Baghdad attempting to find meaning, forgiveness, and redemption amidst the city’s ruins.
Rajiv Joseph’s groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize finalist play explores both the power and the perils of human nature.
"Tragic yet darkly comic and highly imaginative… Joseph has created a theatrical landscape that is totally different from the harrowing war reports to which the nightly news has accustomed us."
— CurtainUp
"Joseph’s metaphoric inventiveness is magnificently displayed throughout, and the kaleidoscope of figures and images bespeaks a purely theatrical imagination."
— Los Angeles Times
"The bottom line: Dark and disturbing but also corrosively funny, Rajiv Joseph’s play set during the early days of the Iraq War is an original."
— The Hollywood Reporter
"Set in the chaotic first days of the American invasion of Iraq, this boldly imagined, harrowing and surprisingly funny drama considers the long afterlife of violent acts, as well as the impenetrable mysteries of the afterlife itself."
— The New York Times
| Character |
|---|
| Tom American, early 20s, older and wiser than Kev. Unsmiling, tough. |
| Kev American, early 20s. |
| Musa Iraqi, 30s. |
| Uday Iraqi, 30s. |
| Iraqi Man |
| Iraqi Woman |
| Iraqi Teenager/Hadia Female. |
| Iraqi Woman A leper. A note on the Tiger: The Tiger can be any age, although ideally he is older, scrappy, past his prime, yet still tough. He can be any race except Middle-Eastern. His language is loose, casual; his profanity is |
| Tiger Big. Tiger wears clothes. Nothing feline about him. |
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo – Broadway Highlights
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo is a play written by Rajiv Joseph and published by Dramatists Play Service .
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