Nine Parts of Desire
Soho Theatre, London

Shirley Dent

Delight in life is abundantly evident in Heather Raffo's one woman show... Correction. Delight in lives.

Written and performed by Raffo, a self proclaimed Halfsy (the daughter of an American mother and Iraqi father) Nine Parts of Desire is truthful in its portrayal of individual women, both Iraqi and America. You can see this and hear this. Raffo captures voice with the eerie zingyness of a juiced up Aeoalian harp: from the angsty telephone ripostes of the American,who watches TV images of Baghdad being bombed knowing that her Iraqi family are in the war zone, to the tummy-rubbing, steady-eyed story of love told by Amal, an Iraqi bedouin.

When Nine Parts of Desire remains grounded in reality acutely told, it works best. Rhetorical it may be, but there is a bitter truth in a doctor, afraid of what her own pregnancy may bring, ending a description of the effects of depleted uranium by asking 'Cancer - is that not the Weapon of Mass Destruction that every one is searching for?' Incidentally, the movement from this scene and the doctor's surgical gown slammed down on the floor to the next, chocful of family affection is moving and uplifting in, well, in one movement.

I was less convinced when Raffo strayed into over-thinking, and consequently over stating, the aesthetics of identity. What works about this play is its ability to tie up and unravel the ragbag of identity we all think we know. And this necessarily evokes incongruities. The brutal description of a young woman being fed to dobermans is sickening. But it is the all-too-human desire of Layal the artist to crush this reality by an image of aesthetic redemption that remains.

What irks - but only slightly - is the white space musings on the sponge like ability ot the artist to absorb identity. I feel ungenerous saying this as Nine Parts of Desire is an insightful and incisive play. But it is strong enough in its characters to need minimal aesthetic or philosophical bolstering.

Till 4 October
Transferred from the Edinburgh Fringe - see review.

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