Aurora Theatre to Hold Discussions After BETRAYED March 6-7

On Friday, March 6, directly following the 8pm performance of BETRAYED at the Aurora Theatre, Upwardly Global will host a panel discussion that will feature two Iraqi refugees.

On Saturday, March 7, directly following the 8pm performance of BETRAYED at the Aurora Theatre, The List Project will host a panel discussion featuring The List Project founder and director Kirk Johnson (the real-life "Prescott" in BETRAYED).

Due to overwhelming popular demand, Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company recently announced that it has added two additional performances to the previously announced extension week of the company's critically acclaimed West Coast Premiere of BETRAYED, winner of the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. Filled with dignity, humor, and outrage, this provocative theatrical adaptation of journalist George Packer’s eye-opening 2007 essay in The New Yorker follows three Iraqi translators who risk their lives to aid the American war effort. Robin Stanton (Permanent Collection, The Busy World is Hushed) helms this thought-provoking production, featuring Bobak Cyrus Bakhtiari, Keith Burkland, Denmo Ibrahim, Alex Moggridge, Amir Sharafeh, Khalid Shayota, and James Wagner. BETRAYED plays now through March 8, with extra added performance March 7 at 2pm, at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. There will be no performance March 3. For tickets ($40-42) and information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

In early 2007, George Packer published an article entitled “Betrayed” in The New Yorker about Iraqi interpreters who jeopardized their lives on behalf of the Americans in Iraq with little or no U.S. protection or security. The article drew national attention to the humanitarian and moral scandal. Based on Packer’s first-person interviews in Baghdad, the stage adaptation of BETRAYED, hailed as “eloquent” and full of “sharp dramatic impact and beauty” by The New York Times, tells the story of three young Iraqis, two men and one woman, motivated to risk everything by America’s promise of freedom.

The San Francisco Chronicle called BETRAYED “gripping . . . ‘Betrayed’ takes a story you think you already know and, by embodying it in flesh and blood, makes it memorably immediate,” while the Contra Costa Times found BETRAYED “complex and absorbing,” noting “In an interview, Packer said the reason he wanted to turn the piece into a play was to bring his subject’s voices to life. And he did that beautifully with Robin Stanton’s direction of the cast of excellent performers . . . . [the piece] soared.” The San Jose Mercury News said BETRAYED was “compelling . . . a deeply moving piece of documentary theater,” and KGO Radio critic Jerry Friedman concurred, hailing the production as “powerful” and “thrilling. . . a non-stop roller coaster ride.”

BETRAYED is produced as the fully-staged anchor production in the Global Age Project (GAP), an Aurora Theatre Company initiative that encourages playwrights and directors to explore life in the 21st century and beyond. Four new plays dealing with global age concerns (The First Grade by Joel Drake Johnson; Birnham Woods by Wendy MacLeod; Right? by Dan Hoyle; and and when we awoke there was light and light by Laura Jacqmin) were chosen for the GAP festival from an international pool of playwrights and will be presented in a series of developmental readings (February 2-23) during the run of BETRAYED.

Following BETRAYED, Mark Jackson, who directed Aurora Theatre Company’s acclaimed production of Salome, returns to the company to helm August Strindberg’s MISS JULIE in April. Bob Glaudini’s unconventional romantic comedy JACK GOES BOATING, directed by Joy Carlin, rounds out the season in June.

Aurora Theatre Company continues to offer challenging, literate, intelligent stage works to the Bay Area, each year increasing its reputation for top-notch theatre. Located in the heart of the Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Aurora Theatre Company has been called “one of the most important regional theaters in the area” by the San Francisco Chronicle, while The Wall Street Journal has “nothing but praise for the Aurora.” The Contra Costa Times stated, “perfection is probably an unattainable ideal in a medium as fluid as live performance, but the Aurora Theatre comes luminously close,” while the San Jose Mercury News affirmed “[Aurora Theatre Company] lives up to its reputation as a theater that feeds the mind,” and the Oakland Tribune declared “it’s all about choices, and if you value good theater, choose the Aurora.”

 

 

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