GO, TIGER!: The Tiger (Victoria Davidjohn, center), who serves as narrator, aggressor, victim, and philosopher; is guarded by two U.S. Marines, Kev (Max Feldman, left) and Tom (Matt Chuckran) in war-torn Baghdad in Theatre Intime’s production of Rajiv Joseph’s dark surrealistic comedy “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” (2009), playing at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through November 21.

The legacy of Saddam Hussein and the repercussions of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq continue to haunt us. Playwright Rajiv Joseph, who understands the power of ghosts and the inexorable reverberations of violence and corruption, would not be surprised.

Mr. Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (2009) is a war story, a dark comedy, with much more darkness than humor. Set in Baghdad in 2003, the first days of the Iraq War, the play is strikingly, shockingly realistic in its depictions of the brutalities of war and its effects on all parties involved. But it is also disturbingly surrealistic, with ghosts gradually taking over the stage from live characters, and an eloquent, acerbic, philosophical tiger presiding over the proceedings. 

All of the characters here are struggling to survive in a horrific wartime environment, and their chances of doing so, without losing all dignity and morality, are very slim indeed. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo enjoyed a short, successful limited run on Broadway in 2011 with Robin Williams in the title role.

The play’s bid for transcendence comes in its rich characterizations, its imaginative perspectives on Baghdad, war and the world, and in the brilliant device of the commentator-tiger seeking understanding and wisdom amidst the desolation. The Tiger repeatedly begging god to speak, to explain his mysteries and to finally come tend to his devastated garden.

The story of Bengal Tiger is based on an actual reported incident at the Baghdad Zoo, involving U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police, a drunken party, and the careless shooting of a rare Bengal tiger. In the first scene of Mr. Joseph’s 11-scene, two-act play, the loquacious, bold Tiger (Victoria Davidjohn) bites off the hand of the seasoned, hardened marine Tom (Matt Chuckran), then is shot and killed by Tom’s impetuous young buddy Kev (Max Feldman).

The Tiger becomes a ghost, freed from his cage to haunt Kev, wander the streets of Baghdad and oversee the action of the rest of the play. Kev, suffering from stress and trauma, is sent to the hospital where he is visited by Tom, who, after surgery and leave, has returned with a prosthetic hand. Tom is determined to reclaim a golden gun that he left with Kev and a golden toilet seat that he hid in the desert, both of which he took from the palace of Saddam Hussein’s son Uday (Marcelo Jaimes Lukes).

Kev dies in the hospital in the suicidal act of cutting his own hand off, and he transforms into an enlightened ghost of his former self, haunting his greedy friend Tom. Meanwhile the golden gun has fallen into the hands of Musa (Charlie Cohen), an Iraqi translator who works with the Americans but used to be Uday Hussein’s gardener.

The coarse, brutal Uday, who was killed by U.S. troops and is now in ghostly form, carrying around his brother Qusay’s head in a plastic bag, taunts Musa with details of the rape and murder of Musa’s young sister Hadia (Lydia Watt) and urges the troubled gardener to embrace the violence and corruption that the war has brought on.

The Intime undergraduate company, under the direction of Princeton University senior Mariel VanLandingham, takes on this demanding play with high energy, thoughtful, creative flair, and significant skill. The characterizations are three-dimensional and convincing. These actors handle the intense realism, the switches between realism and surrealism, the Arabic language, and the shifting emotional terrain with intelligence and understanding.

Mr. Feldman’s boyish marine is both humorous and appropriately frightening in his ignorance in the first act, then sympathetic as a wiser, more mature ghost in the second act. Mr. Chuckran plays a chillingly harsh military figure, as he spirals deeper and deeper into his greed and brutality in his pursuit of the golden gun and toilet seat.

Mr. Cohen’s Musa, acted with subtlety and sensitivity, is the most sympathetic character in the play, as he first enjoys his explorations in translating the English language, but suffers deeply the abuses of both the Hussein regime and the American soldiers. He gradually falls victim to the depredations and corruptions of his environment. As the gardener, struggling to repair his elaborate topiary garden, he represents both god and the artist, facing inevitable defeat in the malevolent, war-torn world.

Mr. Lukes is strong and frighteningly, satanically memorable as the malevolent Uday. Ms. Watt’s affectingly innocent Hadia and also another unnamed Iraqi girl and Anna Zabel’s Iraqi Woman in the first act and wise Leper in the second act are poignant, on-target portrayals.

In the title role as Tiger, dressed in un-tigerish khaki shirt, white pants, and sandals, Ms. Davidjohn prowls confidently through the 11 scenes of the play, often ill-humored and foul-mouthed, often comical in her addresses to god and in her philosophical ruminations. A bit more volume, projection, and energy at key moments would help this Tiger to take full control of the stage.

The design elements here coordinate dynamically with the text and the rest of the production to create the dark poetic landscape of the world of the play. Annabel Barry’s set — earth-colored walls with graffiti in Arabic, an open archway upstage center, and a topiary garden with wire mesh covered in greenery to depict a large elephant, giraffe, and horse — represents the garden at Uday’s palace tended by Musa and also, symbolically, the garden of the world that god seems to have created and neglected.

Lighting by Marissa Applegate helps to establish the dark, eerie mood of the play, with many subtle, effective shifts in color and intensity to move from realistic to surrealistic and also to designate changes in scene. The scenes run smoothly, and the action proceeds swiftly as the ghosts proliferate during the two-hour running time of the play.

Ms. VanLandingham has staged the action clearly and vividly — no small feat, as Mr. Joseph’s story does meander in the second act, with character development and philosophical exploration taking precedence over plot. Occasional problems with sightlines — a downstage table that blocks the view of characters upstage — and some delays in set changing are only minor distractions.

Emma Claire Jones’s costumes — realistic marine fatigues for the soldiers, traditional garb for the Iraqi women, contemporary attire for Uday and Musa and casual “human” garb for the Tiger — all serve well the purposes of the drama.

“When an atheist suddenly finds herself walking around after death, she has got some serious re-evaluating to do,” the Tiger tells us. As the Muslim call to prayer rings out in the background in the play’s final moments, the audience, regardless of religious affiliation, might well ponder, along with Mr. Joseph’s Tiger, the big questions of existence in a world such as this. “Listen!” as the Tiger urges and questions. “Calling out to god in this mess. god. Can you believe it?”

Rajiv Joseph’s “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” will run for one more weekend at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus, with performances Thursday and Friday, November 19-20, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, November 21, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Call (609) 258-1742 or visit www.theatreintime.org for tickets and further information.