‘Baghdaddy’: NY turns Iraq war into musical
NEW YORK: The Iraq war may not sound like musical comedy, but an Off-Broadway revival is spinning intelligence failures and tragedy into a farce that offers potent messages for Donald Trump’s America.
“Baghdaddy”, which officially opened on Monday, tells the true story of an Iraqi defector, code named Curveball, whose claims about weapons of mass destruction became justification for the US-led invasion in 2003.
“If you put ‘Hamilton’ and ‘ The Office’ in a blender you would have this show,” says producer Charlie Fink of the Broadway smash hit about American founding father Alexander and the US television sitcom. The plot opens in the present day with disgraced CIA spies gathering at a support group as they seek understanding and redemption for mistakes that haunt them years later.
The action then switches back in time to Frankfurt airport, where the informant offers to trade apparent secrets about Saddam Hussein’s presumed bio-weapons programme for political asylum.
It’s a fast-paced script woven into a tight score that blends traditional musical theater and camp dancing with hip-hop tracks that carry a stark warning that history should not repeat itself.
Fink says it is more relevant than ever in today’s climate of “fake news” and “alternative facts” as some fear that Trump could drag the country into another conflict, if not in Syria then over North Korea. — AFP