The year before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Dale Goulding was on a personal mission to reach Saddam Hussein–or at least his literary agent. The veteran Chicago director and cofounder of the European Repertory Company had made up his mind to adapt Saddam’s first novel, Zabiba and the King, for the stage, though he knew getting his hands on the book would be no easy task.
It’s hardly surprising that Saddam would write an anti-American, anti-Jewish book, and the dozen or so reviews you can find in English dismiss Zabiba as an amateurish, megalomaniacal agitprop soap opera. Yet strangely enough, it has a decidedly prodemocracy slant. Large sections consist of a discussion between the two title characters about the best way for the king to dismantle his monarchy and bring democracy to Iraq. He may lay all the blame for his nation’s troubles on foreigners, capitalists, and Jews, but in the end he turns his country over to the people.
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When Zabiba and the King appeared in Iraq in late 2000 it didn’t have a byline, just the cryptic label “a story by its author.” It was acclaimed by the state-run press and established Iraqi literary figures, probably because most people were sure the author was Saddam. As one Iraqi author told the BBC, “Writers did not dare do otherwise. Who would dare criticize his work and stay alive?”
When Goulding heard about this he thought the novel might be exactly what he’d been looking for–it might offer a broader picture of Saddam’s politics and beliefs and might even make the despot human. He wasn’t the only one trying to get a fix on the dictator by looking at his writings–the CIA had already translated Zabiba as part of a psychological profile.
Then Goulding happened to have a meeting with Josh Solomon, the 19-year-old cofounder of One Theatre, who’d asked Goulding to direct something with his company. They knew each other through Solomon’s stepmother, Luda Lopatina, who’d directed several European Repertory productions, and Goulding was impressed by what Solomon had already done.
These drawn-out philosophical debates seem a bit dry on the page, but Solomon’s quick to point out that the show will also have music and belly dancing. And Goulding insists that the implications are fascinating. Throughout the debates the king is obsessed with the idea of dismantling his monarchy and establishing some sort of quasi-Marxist democracy, with free elections and a redistribution of wealth. “Saddam makes the argument that no country has progressed from tribalism to democracy without going through a period of dictatorship,” Goulding says. “He sees his period of dictatorship as creating nationhood, carving a nation out of diverse religious and tribal groups, almost like Tito did in Yugoslavia. If the king prematurely introduces democracy Iraq will revert to a tribal society. And you can’t really argue with that.”
