“Aftermath,” a new play by the award-winning husband-wife duo of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, is an 85-minute series of monologues centering on the lives of Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Inspired by 35 interviews with Iraqi refugees in Jordan conducted by Blank and Jensen in 2008, the play is concerned with engendering a dialogue between Iraqis and Americans--not as individuals directly involved with the war or politics of Iraq, but as everyday people left in the wake of a destructive war. Those Iraqis interviewed were posed with the question: If you could say something to a room full of Americans, what would you say? The resulting monologues render a range of voices that can be at times sad, funny, regretful, indignant, insightful, but more than anything else, humanizing, which in the end is the goal of “Aftermath”. Garnering strong praise for its focused and nuanced storytelling and deft performances from the New York Times, Variety, and the Boston Globe, “Aftermath” will be playing at the New York Theater Workshop until Oct. 4.
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