Theatre review: Betrayed/From The West Bank, Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Published on Sunday 9 May 2010 20:52

IF THE aim of good political theatre is to enhance our knowledge of people struggling for life and freedom against the arrogance of power, and to increase our sense of solidarity with them, then the Tron's new Mayfesto festival got off to a storming start on Friday evening, with a powerful performance of George Packer's 80-minute drama Betrayed.

Set in Baghdad in the years after the American- and British-led occupation of Iraq in 2003, it revolves around the ever more terrible plight of three young translators who, in a first rush of enthusiasm for the idea of an Iraq without Saddam Hussein, take jobs in the American embassy as translators and guides.

However, Intisar, Adnan and Laith have not bargained for the lethal combination of a fast-deteriorating security situation in Iraq, and the absolute failure of these countries to protect the Iraqis who risked their lives by choosing to work for them.

The story is a tragic one, particularly for the young woman, Intisar, who simply cannot bring herself to wear the veil that the new religious militias on the streets demand.

The tight production by Leann O'Kasi, on a fine two-level set by Kenny Miller that captures both the blazing desert heat and the sudden brilliant green of Middle Eastern landscape, it draws three memorably intense performances from Maryam Hamidi, Arran Shanti and Waleed Akhtar as the three young Iraqis, with Adam Macnamara and John Macaulay as the Americans who first seduce and then betray them.

The second half of the evening involves a triple bill of 20-minute plays gathered under the title From The West Bank, and perhaps inevitably packs slightly less dramatic punch.

There's Franca Rame's monologue for an Arab woman who becomes a communist revolutionary, delivered with passion by Cora Bissett, pictured, a painful reflection by David Greig on the difficulty of returning from a visit to Gaza to an ordinary western life, and there is Greig's short, beautiful adaptation of Raja Shehadeh's story An Imagined Sarha.

Given two thoughtful performances from Benny Young and Ewan Donald, it delivers another beautiful piece of theatre, full of realism about the world's most intractable conflict, and yet also full of humanity, and a kind of hope.