Theatre review: A Museum in Baghdad

Wars in the Middle East have taken a horrific toll on human lives; sometimes just as well-publicised is the loss of archaeological sites and priceless historical artefacts to collateral damage, looting and wanton destruction. Hannah Khalil's A Museum in Baghdad explores the tricky ground of trying to weigh out the relative value of lives and history. In overlapping scenes it follows two women, one historical, one fictional, both trying to launch the same titular museum eighty years apart. The nation of Iraq was created after the First World War out of various warring tribes in the region then known as Mesopotamia, under a king installed by the British rulers, and the understanding that it would be granted independence once the country was on its feet. Archaeologist Gertrude Bell (Emma Fielding) was one of the architects of the country and its laws, and when we meet her in 1926 she's in the process of setting up a central museum of treasures that tell the story of the region's history and cultural significance.

She's assisted by Salim (Zed Josef,) whose loyalty and admiration for her may mean the picture he gives her of how things are going for regular Iraqis may be somewhat sugar-coated; among her struggles is fending off the British Museum's Professor Woolley (David Birrell,) who'd happily take most of her exhibits home with him "for their own safety."

During Saddam Hussein's reign, Bell's museum was closed to the public and earned the nickname of "Saddam's gift shop," and during the Iraq War it suffered damage and looting. In 2006, Iraqi-born archaeologist Ghalia Hussein (Rendah Heywood) returns from exile, inheriting both Bell's job as Museum Director and her task of launching these exhibits to the public almost from scratch. She's assisted by the pragmatic Layla (Houda Echouafni,) who wears a hijab less out of religious fervour and more as a practical way of being left to her own devices, and who regularly challenges her boss' ideas; and by Mohammed (Riad Richie,) the nephew of a government minister, which makes him a target for kidnappers, something regularly flashed forward to but never satisfactorily resolved.

Both women have deadlines to open at least part of the museum before it's quite ready; but where Gertrude is evangelical about the art being accessible to the people, Ghalia is so afraid it'll be damaged it's a wonder she allows any of it to go on display at all. She's also distracted by an obsession with finding stolen artefacts being sold online. Having the two women's stories share the stage is an interesting way of showing the ways they mirror or differ from each other, and the struggles that don't change for them as women in a man's world eighty years apart. But after a slow but decent start, Khalil throws more high concepts into the mix and the play soon trips itself up.

We have scenes from both times repeating themselves, the toss of a coin setting events in motion in two different (but not wildly different) directions. Meanwhile the museum's caretaker Abu Zaman (Rasoul Saghir) appears, ageless, in both centuries and across all alternate timelines, the two women unaware he appears to be some kind of supernatural keeper of Iraq's history. Unfortunately none of the threads actually develop into anything interesting, and what with the circular nature of the story's events, the fact that Erica Whyman's production is quite static and visually dull means the play ends up as dry and dusty as the desert it's set in.

A Museum in Baghdad by Hannah Khalil is booking in repertory until the 25th of January at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; and from the 22nd of April to the 23rd of May at the Kiln Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.