Betrayed

"A Sunni who has worked for years as a translator for the Americans in Iraq, [Adnan] has been denied a visa to immigrate to the United States . . . His plight is one of three heart-rending tales woven together in Betrayed, a new play by George Packer about the suffering of Iraqis who have risked everything to help the American government and military in Iraq—and have, all too often, received insufficient protection in return. The play . . . explores its subject with a clean focus that draws out the emotional power of the material with clinical precision . . . Mr. Packer's approach to the material is eloquent in its lack of adornment . . . the clarity of the writing, the urgency of the story being told . . . give the play a sharp dramatic impact and a plain-spoken beauty. Painful human experience is presented here as just that. Nothing else is necessary to awaken sympathy, despair and awareness of a grave moral failure on the part of the American government . . . The play gives us insight into the reasons, both personal and philosophical, behind these characters' decisions to risk so much in order to help usher a new Iraq into being. It also depicts the vise of danger gradually tightening around them, as Iraqi resentment and hatred of the Americans grows."—Charles Isherwood, The New York Times