Faith and Charity

Politically conscious people, especially of the stridently antiwar variety, read George Packer’s story in the March 26, 2007 New Yorker with acute sadness and perverse glee. Packer, after all, supported the war. And his 2005 book, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, attempted a takedown of Bush’s lie-based rationale for the U.S. invasion of a sovereign nation. It wasn’t admitting being wrong, but it was close.

In his New Yorker story, Packer wrote about how a group of Iraqis, working for Americans in the Green Zone, were betrayed by their employer—the same folks who’d invaded their land, ignited a civil war and dangled democracy before them like a political aphrodisiac. It wasn’t overt betrayal, really, but more like benign neglect: refusing to give them, say, special passes to speed them through the morning line to their jobs, where they were vulnerable to suicide bombings or worse.

Packer’s story had all the elements of a fine drama, and the theater piece based on his reporting, Betrayed, will stand the test of time. Pippin Parker stages the play like a chess game in which any pawn may be beheaded at any moment—this approach delivering an astonishing emotional intensity. It’s also astonishing how faithful Packer is to his source material and how the play’s title resonates beyond its gently intertwining story lines. Betrayed is more than a morality play about well-educated, democracy-enamored Iraqis and the politicians and diplomats living bubble-like existences in the Green Zone: It’s also about our government’s betrayal of sense. In short, it’s Packer’s betrayal of himself.

Adnan (Waleed F. Zuaiter), a Sunni, and Laith (Sevan Greene), a Shia, are cherished friends whose ethno-religious differences seem no more divisive than a Jew, Catholic and atheist riding on the A train. With Intisar (Aadya Bedi), a comely female colleague who yearns to enjoy all the freedoms promised by the Americans, they apply for and receive jobs working for Prescott (Mike Doyle), a diplomatic factotum. Doyle’s square jaw and unblemished face embody that mood of Republican limitlessness that hung in the air like mustard gas after Bush’s re-election. Why fret over workers living in violent neighborhoods and facing death threats when you can flip on the TV and worship Condoleezza Rice?

Intisar’s predictably gruesome death, amplified by projections on the upstage wall, offer evidence that militias mean business when it comes to Iraqis toiling for the enemy. In one scene, Prescott sneaks out of the Green Zone with Adnan and Laith to see some of Baghdad. They share a meal and endure a blackout, but Packer writes with such clarity that you can detect the moral conversion underway in Prescott’s mind.

And Zuaiter and Greene are breathtakingly excellent. These are fully imagined heroes, if you ask me, and probably seem so real because they are. In scenes that Packer has written for them together, with other characters, and in monologues, these actors invest their characters with such innovation and richness that you want to find the actual men they’re based on and bless them for their sacrifices.

When the Iraqis beg the American Ambassador (Ramsey Faragallah) to issue those passes, a brusque, callow-looking security man (Jeremy Beck) is called in to deny their request. It’ll be a death sentence for somebody, we know. It’s a reminder that this catastrophic war is the handiwork of murdering ideologues and political buffoons—and a reminder that everyone is betrayed in a time of war.

Through March 16. The Culture Project, 55 Mercer St. (at Broome St.), 212-352-3101. $36.