Rajiv Joseph - Blog

Transcript of interview with Rajiv Joseph

Jo Reed:  It seems to me that Bengal Tiger is a play about translation, about the  act of translating

Rajiv Joseph:  It absolutely is a play about translation.  That seems to me one of the deeper ideas and themes of the play-- first and foremost that one of the main characters, the Iraqi character, Musa, is a translator for the military.  But within that kind of job that he has, we have several scenes in the play where one character stands between two others and tries to facilitate communication and understanding, and it seems to me that that's an important act.  It's something that fascinates me because it is so often faulty, particularly in moments of great stress and moments of great conflict.  We're already in a war situation and  in watching the scenes in this play, it's always interesting to me to watch the actors play with this idea, because as an audience, we're also seeing-- we're hearing languages that we don't understand.  And there's no subtitles or supertitles used in the play, by my prescription, that it's important for the audience to me to be part of that confusion and to be part of the tension that builds when people cannot communicate.