Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire is one of the most
compelling pieces of solo theater you will ever see on a Portland
stage. Performed by Luisa Sermol in a joint effort by CoHo and Cygnet
Productions, 9 Parts illuminates the lives of nine Iraqi
women—not terrorists, not war heroes, but normal, everyday women
living and loving and trying to survive in contemporary Iraq, where
nothing is the same as it once was and the future is uncertain.
No matter how politically knowledgeable we may be, most of us in the
US watch the Iraq War on television, and the lives of normal Iraqi
citizens are rarely shown on MSNBC. Raffo has anchored her play in the
big-picture facts, but her focus is on the stories of nine individual
people—it’s not a sweeping polemic. Using more than a decade of
interviews, Raffo, who is half-Iraqi and half-American, has created a
theatrical documentary of women coming to terms with their
realities.
Sermol convincingly and completely inhabits each of these
characters, transitioning from one to another with a flick of her hair,
a drape of fabric, and nuanced changes in posture and voice. Mullaya
opens the play, mourning the dead and laying out the play’s primary
challenge: This rich land has been an important part of history for so
long, and has been so contested—and each struggle has taken a
lasting toll on the people living there. “Where is anything they said
there would be?” she asks. “We were promised so much.”
Layal, a vibrant and sensual painter, capitulated to Saddam’s regime
in order to survive and channels her frustration and fears into her
work. Huda, an aged intellectual living in London, tempers her anger
and guilt with drink and explains how so many can be against Saddam,
but still feel betrayed by the war and the Americans. A young girl
dances to American music in defiance of her mother and pines for her
father who has “disappeared.” An American watches the news, tries to
reach her Iraqi family members, and struggles to keep herself
together.
Taken separately, each character and vignette is unique and fully
dimensional. Together, they are a striking portrait that lends far more
insight into contemporary Iraq than any news broadcast ever could.