Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
As The Tiger
2011 | Broadway play | 120 min + 15 min intermission | 16+ | Official Site
As The Tiger
Moises Kaufman
Rajiv Joseph
Kathryn Bostic
Richard Rodgers Theatre
March 11, 2011
132 (including 23 previews and the opening night)
March 31, 2011
July 3, 2011
Robyn Goodman, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller and Center Theatre Group
$75 / $95 / $135 / $265 ($313 during weekends)
The Tiger
Tom
Kev
Musa
Iraqi Man, Uday
Iraqi Teenager, Hadia
Iraqi Woman, Leper
Bengal Tiger is billed as a "darkly comic tale narrated by a tiger held captive in the Baghdad Zoo." According to the producers, "The play follows the intertwined lives of two American marines and one Iraqi gardener as they search through the rubble of war for friendship, redemption and a toilet seat made of gold."
What can I do, I'm a Tiger.
Get out of my head!
It wasn't cruel. It was lunch
This place is lousy with ghosts.
And the new ones are irritating. They're walking around,
wide eyed... What happened to me? Where am I? You're
dead and you're in Baghdad. Shut up.
Anyhow, the other day, I'm walking down the street. The
street is literally ON FIRE.
And I see this little girl. Her life is like a soap bubble, and
then pop! She's here, in the middle of the street, looking up
at me. And she says to me: What are you? And I tell her, I'm
a tiger. And she says why?
She says why.
I don't know, I tell her. I just am.
Which is true. I don't want to lie.
She asks me am I going to eat her.
And I say, no, I gave up eating children.
She says why?
And I say, I don't know, it's this philosophy I'm working out
about sin and redemption since God is apparently nuts.
And the girl just kind of looks at me.
And I'm like: think about it, if God's watching, why'd he
snuff you out? Why are you standing here, alone, in a
burning street, with a dead tiger?
Why are you dead?
Why is half your face gone?
And she says yeah, but why'd you give up eating children?
And I tell her the bit about the two kids in the forest, and how I keep thinking about them and how I have all this guilt.
She doesn't understand that. The guilt thing. She doesn't have any guilt. And I'm like, of course you don't. What did you ever do? Nothing.
She tells me she's afraid.
I tell her I am too.
Which you'd think would be comforting, given the
circumstances, but somehow, being blown to bits and then
coming face to face with the likes of me...
Well the girl starts to cry, you know?
Her one eye, cries.
And I say, don't cry. But she cries harder. And so I say to her:
Hey do you want to see something amazing? And she stops
crying for a second. And she's like, what?
And I say it's a... I tell her it's a garden.
And she looks at me as if to say, big fucking deal, like I
haven't seen a garden before?
And I say, no it's a special garden.
Lights up on the topiary animals.
It's a special garden. And I don't know why I say this,
but I say, it's God's garden.
I tell her it's God's garden.
He likes gardens, see. He tests us in them, he tempts us in
them, he builds them up and tears them apart. It's like his
fucking hobby.
And she's skeptical, I can see that, but I bring her here and
she sees these plants, these animals, and she's never seen
anything like them before. And I nailed it because she's not
crying anymore. She's walking around the garden, pointing.
A lion! A camel! An elephant!
Fucking kids, you know?
And I mean, this whole time I'm talking out of my ass, this
business about God's garden, etcetera. Maybe she knows
I'm bullshitting, too. The girl is no dummy, even if she does
only have half a brain.
But for a second we both look up at these ruined shrubs and
think, okay Man: You work in Mysterious Ways. We get it.
And I feel this swell of hope.
"It just hit me hard, it was so powerful. I read it, and I was going, 'I'm in. I can come into it and create it from the ground up.' "And I'm hairy enough to be a tiger, so that's good." "Most of the time most of the characters are, to be blunt, ghosts. I mean, I don't want to spoil it but right off the bat, you're in Iraq, it's all these ghosts wondering around, talking and gaining more consciousness as they continue through the play."
The play was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2010.
Premiered in Los Angeles, CA in 2009, where Kevin Tighe played the role of the Bengal Tiger.
$2,602,246 (as of April 11, 2011)
Nom - 2011 - Best Play
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Performance (Robin Williams)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Performance (Arian Moayed)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding New Broadway Play
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Set Design (Derek McLane)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Lighting Design (David Lander)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Play (Rajiv Joseph)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Director of a Play (Moises Kaufman)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Music in a Play (Katryn Bostic)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Set Design (Derek McLane)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Lighting Design (David Lander)
Nom - 2011 - Outstanding Sound Design in a Play (Acme Sound Partners & Cricket S. Myers)
