ATW Review - Horrors of Many Kinds To Be Found in Palace of the End

A trio of sad and weary individuals tell their stories and bear their souls in Judith Thompson's withering Palace of the End, currently playing at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre on 42nd Street.

This triptych of scalding monologues is inspired by three real-life figures: Lynndie England, the soldier who became the face of the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib; David Kelly, the British weapons inspector who is believed to have committed suicide after revealing that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction; and Nehrjas Al Saffarh, the wife of the head of Iraq's Communist party. She was killed by American bombs during the first Gulf war.

Teri Lamm gives what may be the production's most daring performance in the piece's opening "My Pyramids." She plays Lynndie and allows the young woman's arrogance, anger, and small-mindedness to combine in a truly revolting portrait. As Lynndie pushes papers at a desk job in a sterile army environment (one of the three beautiful sculptural environments provided by scenic designer Mimi Lien), she googles herself, complains about the way in which she's been represented in the media, and attempts to establish credible reasons for her actions. Ultimately, though, as she describes the way in which she and friends harassed a childhood schoolmate, we see that Lynndie is simply a bully who's been put into an army uniform, and thus, feels as though she has been given the right to bully on a more visible global scale.

In the evening's second monologue, Rocco Sisto plays Kelly as he waits for his death in the woods, having fatally slashed himself. As Kelly describes the events that led to his involvement in sex-ing up documents proving that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction, there is a painfully haunted tone and air to Sisto's performance. The reason becomes clear as he describes what transpired in Iraq to make him come forward, admitting to the duplicity of early government reports that swayed public opinion. It's a painful tale that Sisto delivers with both nuance and flair.

"Palace" concludes with "Instruments of Yearning," which is perhaps the most moving of the three monologues, with Heather Raffo (author and performer of the acclaimed 9 Parts of Desire) playing Saffarh, who describes the regime of terror that she and her family endured under Saddam Hussein's rule. Like the opening section of "Palace," Saffarh's tale includes graphic descriptions of torture, but unlike Lynndie's account, Saffarh's comes from the viewpoint of a woman who endured and watched her children endure the unspeakable. In Raffo's graceful performance, the accounts never become sensational nor sentimental, rather, and perhaps most important, they resound with a kind of warm-hearted numbness that chills.

These three performances have been guided by director Daniella Topol, who has orchestrated a fine physical production, including Justin Townsend's atmospheric lighting design and Leah Gelpe's subtle projection design – for this important, effective and affecting work.

---- Andy Propst

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Palace of the End plays at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street). Performances are Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday at 3 and 7pm; Thursday at 7pm; Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 3 and 8pm; and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $50.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-279-4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. Further information is available at www.epictheatreensemble.org.