By FRANK SCHECK
Rating: 
Last updated: 10:01 am
June 30, 2008
Posted: 3:15 am
June 30, 2008
THE most shocking thing about Judith Thomp son's "Palace of the End," about the horrors of the Iraqi war, is how not shocking it is.
The play is a triptych of monologues inspired by three real-life figures: Lynndie England, the young soldier who became the face of the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib; David Kelly, the British weapons inspector who apparently committed suicide after revealing that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction; and Nehrjas Al Saffarh, the wife of the head of Iraq's Communist party, who was killed by American bombs during the first Gulf war.
In the first piece, "My Pyramids," the pregnant England (Teri Lamm) bitterly complains about her misrepresentation by the media.
"Do not Google yourself," she advises, having found 600,000 entries about herself, which she supposes "makes me famous." Concerned about how ugly she looks in the notorious photographs, she confesses her jealousy of Jessica Lynch's heroics and defends her own actions by saying, "It got a hell of a lot worse than that."
"Harrowdown Hill" depicts Kelly (Rocco Sisto) dying in the woods after he has fatally slashed himself, and describing his complicity in helping the British government make the case for going to war.
"They admitted they needed to sex it up," he says, until the killing of some Iraqi friends by American soldiers made him finally reveal the truth.
"Instruments of Yearning" is the most powerful of the three, perhaps because its story isn't as well-known. It has Al Saffarh (Heather Raffo) describing how she and her children were tortured by Saddam's henchmen in a castle later called the "palace of the end" due to the horrors committed there.
Despite the fine, admirably restrained performances and powerful writing, "Palace of the End" fails to lift itself into the realm of the truly haunting.
PALACE OF THE END ** 1/2
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 416 W. 42nd St.; (212) 279-4200. Through July 13.
