Theatre of Iraq Under Occupation, 2003-2011: Lamentation, Homeland, Identity

From its inception in the northern city of Mosul in the late nineteenth century, Iraqi theatre leaned toward the utopian. Iraqis saw themselves as inheritors of the ancient culture of Mesopotamia, and dramatists frequently referred to the region’s rich history as they imagined the future.

However, in 2003, the United States invasion of Iraq propelled Iraqi theatre in an altogether different direction. Global media published photographs documenting the torture of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers and sectarian violence broke out, as Shiʿa and Sunni militias struggled for power. Theatre of Iraq Under Occupation examines the occupation’s impact on Iraqi theatre as eliciting lamentation over loss of homeland and identity, and as an assault on the Iraqi character itself. The first volume in English dedicated solely to theatre in Iraq, James Al-Shamma and Amir Al-Azraki’s insights don’t just offer a significant contribution to cultural studies, they bridge foreign policy and art in real time.

James Al-Shamma is associate professor of theatre at Belmont University. He is author of Sarah Ruhl: A Critical Study of the Plays. Al-Shamma lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Amir Al-Azraki is associate professor of Islamic and Arab cultures studies at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. He is author of The Discourse of War in Contemporary Theatre and plays such as Waiting for Gilgamesh: Scenes from Iraq. Both authors are coeditors and cotranslators of the two-volume Contemporary Plays from Iraq. Al-Azraki lives in Guelph, Canada.