Inana

[The following review was posted on Variety.com on Tuesday, January 27th.]

Now that the Obama administration has set in motion a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq, the search begins for a way to heal from the slaughter and devastation. The depth and breadth of the damage done to Persian civilization is severe, first by Saddam and then significantly amplified by Bush, but in this touching portrait of an Iraqi anthropologist—and his wife, colleagues, and acquaintances—playwright Michele Lowe has opened a window of hope and opportunity.

(L to R) Piter Marek as Darius Shalid and Laith Nakli as Abdel-Hakim Taliq Photo: Terry Shapiro

On the eve of the U.S. invasion, Darius Shalid (Piter Marek), a museum director and on-site excavation chief in an outlying province of Iraq, has undertaken a journey fraught with peril: travelling to London with a secret plan to preserve certain antiquities from the barbarisms of both the western invaders and the resident fundamentalists.

Lowe weaves an intricate tale that is both a love story and an ode to the treasures of the unique, elegant, and far-reaching civilization that developed between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The centerpiece of the story is a sculpture of Inana, the ancient mother goddess—and, metaphorically, the soul of country—whose safety is entrusted to Darius. Lowe brings this imagery and symbolism to flesh in Darius' new wife, Shali (Mahira Kakkar).

Piter Marek as Darius Shalid and Mahira Kakkar as Shali Shalid Photo: Terry Shapiro

The entirety of the action takes place in a middling London hotel room, adjoining water closet, and an extended downstage for flashbacks. In the intimate Ricketson Theatre, the immediacy of the action in space and its fluidity in time provides a flexible canvas in which memory seamlessly informs the present, underscoring the psychological and spiritual depth of Lowe's characters and their context in the larger conflict.

In the opening scene, director Michael Pressman's well-tempered staging of a white hijab-swathed Shali's mysterious silence initiates a seductive unveiling of emotions set to the rhythm of a compelling thriller. Marek's and Kakkar's performances risk everything—for Darius, his career and his life, for Shali her marriage and her life—to remain faithful to their culture and themselves.

Mahira Kakkar as Shali Shalid and Nasser Faris as Emad Al-Bayit Photo: Terry Shapiro

Their interplay is punctuated by a couple of bizarre characters, a boisterous and too-familiar waiter (the hilarious David Ivers) and a furtive, hair-trigger go-between (an edgy Alok Tewari), plus a series of well-drawn flashbacks featuring a consummate antiquarian bookseller (an alternately passionate and stoic Laith Nakli), a world-renowned forger (a clever, big-hearted Nasser Faris), Darius' first wife and Shali's sister (both played by an animated and engaging Reema Zaman).

The production's alignment of character with performance and script with direction dissolves the illusory separation of art from reality as well as the playwright's research from her imagination, culminating in a final scene lent credence by recent news reports on the return of over 24,000 Iraqi antiquities, looted originally with tacit U.S. approval. (According to UNESCO, 3,000 to 7,000 pieces are still missing, including between 40 and 50 of "great historic importance.")

Mahira Kakkar as Shali Shalid and Piter Marek as Darius Shalid Photo: Terry Shapiro

With the disengagement from the war still a contentious issue in some circles, Inana adds immeasurable depth to a dialogue begging to be heard in Washington and throughout the country. The Denver Center Theatre Company's world premiere of Michele Lowe's Inana runs through February 28th. 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org.

Bob Bows