Artefacts

Kelly (Lizzy Watts), an excitable British teenager, prepares to meet her Iraqi father, Ibrahim (Peter Polycarpou), for the first time. Ibrahim, who runs the National Museum in Baghdad, left her mother while she was pregnant, and when he lumbers in, it's clear that the guilt hasn't left him. The short scene, which features few words but a play's worth of personal and political subtext, concludes with his handing her an ancient Iraqi vase, which, as a kind of punishment, she breaks. He stares at the pieces, frozen in shock. And from there the nightmare begins.