New Yorkers shown despair of Baghdad in new play

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12371135.htm

Americans can get a taste of the chaos and danger of Baghdad after the U.S. invasion, thanks to "Baghdadi Bath," a play opening on Thursday at a small theater in New York's East village.

"It's very important that Americans understand the size of the pain and suffering caused by the occupation inflicted on Iraq," said the play's author, Jawad al-Assadi, who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq 25 years ago, via a translator.

Al-Assadi, 58, told Reuters in an interview he hoped the play he wrote in 2005 after a brief return to Baghdad would be an effective way of communicating the despair Iraqis endured.

(snip)
He was shocked to return to Baghdad in early 2005 to set up a theater but instead saw a city "estranged from its own self." Thirty years of Saddam Hussein's rule had "erased their (Iraqis) souls and their lives" while the "American occupation broke their backs."