Robin Williams
‘Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo’ by Rajiv Joseph. If I were Rajiv Joseph, I would just leave it at that. The title is intriguing enough for people to build their own plots and stories around it. But it has become a celebrated play on Broadway with the unputdownable Robin Williams playing the central character of a tiger in Baghdad in the midst of war.
Rajiv Joseph
“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 new American play explores both the power and the perils of human nature,” is how the play’s website describes it.
The New York Times says,"This boldly imagined, harrowing and surprisingly funny drama is wonderfully daring."
I have not seen the play (Remember I live in a basement?) but it seems to me that there could not a more compelling fit for the character of the tiger than Robin Williams. It is almost as if Williams has overdosed on talent. I can picture him owning the stage as a raving and ranting tiger.
Joseph, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the play, has an interesting background. His Wikipedia entry describes him as a native of Cleveland, Ohio, whose mother is a “Euroamerican of French and German ancestry” and whose father is Indian. The 36-year-old playwright spent his formative years in Senegal as part of the Peace Corps. Imagine his influences—French, German, Indian, Senegalese and tiger.