‘Un-Embedded’ and unformed
A more accurate title for the new show “Jerry Quickley: Un-Embedded” might be “Jerry Quickley: Unfinished.” This one-man dispatch from the front lines of Iraq feels more like a half-realized podcast than a full-fledged theatrical endeavor.
Perhaps best known as a host on KPFK-FM, Jerry Quickley recounts his recent trips to Baghdad in an extended monologue that he occasionally punctuates with photographs and video he took along the streets. The journey feels both horrific and strangely hilarious at the same time -- a tragicomic series of events that never coalesces into a coherent whole. “Un-Embedded,” which plays through Sunday at REDCAT, is little more than a collection of impressions, anecdotes and free associations.
Sitting behind a desk for much of the play, Quickley unleashes his journalist’s story in a clipped, idiosyncratic rhythm -- think NPR meets Spalding Gray. The show bounces between Iraq and Los Angeles as the narrator struggles with his own perverse, inexplicable attraction toward the war. Along the way, he introduces us to the people he’s interviewing for an eventual documentary, including Sunnis, Shiites and Americans. Quickley embodies all of these characters in a series of sketches designed to equally amuse and repel.
In one scene, he plays his interpreter Ahmed, a fun-loving pop-culture addict who can’t stop playing his 50 Cent albums, bombs or no bombs. Later, he plays an Iraqi businessman who has become unimaginably wealthy as a result of the war and whose favorite expression seems to be “Bush is God!”
These impersonations constitute the strongest parts of the story, not because Quickley is an especially good actor, but because they seem to offer the kind of unexpurgated detail promised by the show’s title. The most damning caricature is a Christian motivational speaker whom the U.S. military has somehow deemed fit to address the Baghdad police force. Inanely upbeat and unfailingly condescending, he manages to offend everyone in the room. As a parting benediction, he assures his Iraqi listeners: “This is your land -- kind of.”
Oddly enough, playing himself appears to give Quickley the most trouble. He seems unable to find a consistent tone as a narrator, veering from bemusement to despondency to anger. On opening night Thursday, he even got tongue-tied at certain moments -- a strange affliction for an experienced radio host. His decision to flashback to his rough New York upbringing is arbitrary and offers some dime-store psychological insight into why he feels drawn to violent parts of the world as an adult.
The conclusions Quickley draws about his Iraq journeys are trite and shallow. “The whole place was surreal,” he says of the war-torn city. This statement, while almost certainly true, is an embarrassing summation of the world’s preeminent international crisis. As a piece of journalism, the play doesn’t dig deep; as a work of dramatic theater, it fails to locate universal themes within its diaristic framework.
“Un-Embedded” is the second part of Quickley’s planned trilogy on Iraq. (The first part, “Live From the Front,” premiered last year at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.) Judging solely from this second installment, the material that he has collected over the months feels better suited for a blog than the stage. But if it’s the live theater that he craves -- and he seems to truly enjoy having an audience present -- Quickley will need to conjure up something more polished and substantial than this first draft of a show.
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‘Jerry Quickley: Un-Embedded’
Where: REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles
When: 8:30 p.m. today, 3 p.m. Sunday
Ends: Sunday
Price: $25
Contact: (213) 237-2800, www.redcat.org
Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
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