A portrait of the extraordinary (and ordinary) lives of a whole cross-section of Iraqi women – specifically as they are all encountered and seen through the eyes of an American woman – this work lifts the veil on exactly what it means to be female in the age-old war zone that is Iraq. An unusually timely meditation on the oppression of women in a country overshadowed by war, Nine Parts of Desire's scribe and star, Heather Raffo, created the piece from extensive research and dozens of interviews on four continents over a period of 11 years.
Raffo first performed the play in August 2003 as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, after which it moved to the Bush Theatre in London's Off-West End. It was then performed as a reading at New York's Public Theater last Spring and now has an extended run at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre.
[IMG:L]Charles Isherwood of The New York Times hailed the piece as “powerful, impassioned, vivid” and “memorable.” He says that Raffo, “inhabits her characters with such compelling vibrancy that they do not entirely disappear when she moves from one to the next. The voices are a study in contrasts: vivid and subdued, sophisticated and naïve, seductive and standoffish. But they cohere to form a powerful collective portrait of suffering and endurance.”