Betrayed Is Reliably Excellent

By Mary Damiano

Betrayed is theater that will make you mad, and make you think. Photo by George Schiavone

GableStage loves, loves, loves to get up on its soapbox. Artistic director Joseph Adler chooses plays that say something political, or comment on the social mores of our time. Sometimes they don’t work, and you end up with a stage full of dogma-spouting talking heads. But sometimes they do, and you end up with a moving night at the theater.

The theater’s current production, Betrayed, gets back on the GableStage soapbox, but it works because it never feels preachy. Betrayed introduces us to flesh and blood people, not characters, in life and death situations, and it’s much easier to be moved by people than by caricatures.

Playwright George Packer based Betrayed on a series of articles on Iraqi translators he wrote for The New Yorker. Packer’s investigative pedigree gives Betrayed credibility, and his dialogue and situations crackle with authority.

Set in 2003, and told in the form of subtle flashbacks, the story concerns Laith (Antonio Amadeo) and Adnan (John Manzelli), two Iraqi friends who become translators for the American government in the Middle East. They dream of a new Iraq where bombings and beheadings are not everyday occurrences, and they believe there’s a measure of patriotism in working for the Americans. They are joined in their work by Intisar (Ceci Fernandez), a young woman who sees herself as making strides for women in Iraq. But the translators are in a no-win situation — their Iraqi community considers them traitors, and the Americans suspect them of being spies.

Amadeo and Manzelli ably convey the complexities of their characters, their hope, their paranoia and their disillusionment. Fernandez’s performance is fascinating and heartbreaking, and goes well beyond a symbolic representation of female oppression in Iraq. Whenever she’s onstage, she’s riveting because she feels her role so deeply that she never seems to be acting. Ricky Waugh also shines as an American government official who tries desperately to help the translators, but who experiences his own disillusionment with his government.

Lyle Baskin’s set construction is appropriately drab and depressing, while Jeff Quinn’s lighting adds to the growing despair.

Betrayed will make you mad — mad that our government treats people this way, especially those who are trying to help. It will make you mad that we’re in Iraq in the first place. It will make you mad at the bureaucratic machinations that use up people and then spit them out.

Adler has been quoted as saying that he wants to move his audiences in such a way that they crawl out of the theater on their bellies. With Betrayed, they’re also likely to have their tail between their legs.

Betrayed runs through Sept. 14 at GableStage at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Showtimes are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. 305-445-1119. www.gablestage.org.