Too Soon for Iraq Dramas?
Michael Weiss · 06/16/08 12:24PMWhy isn't George Packer's terrific little play Betrayed — about the three pro-American Iraqis who don't quite get what they need from America – not doing better? (It opened in February at the Culture Project in Soho, extended its run for a bit, but is slated to close on June 16.) Maybe because he's too good at his day job: Betrayed is based on one of Packer's lengthy Iraq dispatches for the New Yorker, and his natural audience might have simply said goodbye to all that after the original piece appeared in March 2007. But is it still "too soon" to render Iraq as anything other than journalism? Yep. For starters, the war has to be over first.