''This is like a drop from the sea of sadness,'' one Iraqi acknowledges in his plea for U.S. asylum, a haunting voice-over from George Packer's play, Betrayed.

Fresh from its run in New York, GableStage director Joseph Adler seized the chance to produce New Yorker writer Packer's adaptation of his interviews with Iraqis who worked for the Americans, what they risked and endured.

The play focuses on the heart-wrenching plight of three interpreters, who in many ways were representative of the average Iraqi -- happy to be free of Saddam Hussein at last, deeply hopeful about the possibilities the American presence represented.

Even when most media grew weary of Iraq, the New Yorker was tenacious in its coverage -- reporter Seymour Hersh, who revealed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, also broke the Abu Ghraib scandal. This play is based on an article that ran in the magazine's April 2, 2007 issue.

Pieces of the play are taken verbatim from Packer's article, including partisan squabbling that creeps into the longtime friendship of Adnan, a Sunni (John Manzelli, who also offers poignant commentary between scenes), and Laith (Antonio Amadeo), who is Shiite. The characters are a composite of the many interviewed, but they all have a reverence for Western culture: Laith loves Metallica, like the dunderheaded G.I. who gets him a job; Adnan learned English from the books he peddled on Mutanabi Street in old Baghdad. The single female interpreter, Intisar (Ceci Fernandez, whose expressive eyes tell the story), quotes Emily Bronte and dreams of being allowed to ride a bicycle through the streets like her brothers, without being punished for ''immodesty.'' She's already angered the Sadrists by refusing to wear a hijab, the traditional Arab head covering.

Todd Durkin digs into the dual unsympathetic roles of U.S. soldier and embassy security officer, each convincing in his ignorance and brutality toward the culture he's been charged with rebuilding, rehabilitating. Also realistically distasteful is Bill Schwartz as both an ambassador who passes on the simple but crucial responsibility for getting the interpreters easier entry into the Green Zone, and an Iraqi who threatens Intisar. But the play belongs to Fernandez, Amadeo and Manzelli, who touchingly portray the Iraqis' waning belief in a better life that they can't quite relinquish.

The play pretty effectively distills Packer's detailed account of the surreal existence both Iraqis and Americans, for different reasons, are caught in, although it's dense with dialogue and action (and no intermission), giving it a sense of urgency the written word can't convey.

The joke is that war is a geography lesson, and the Iraqis' conversations are peppered with references to Amarra and Babil -- or was it Basra? -- as casually as we might mention Springfield, Mo., where their boss and eventual friend/rescuer Bill Preston hails from. Prescott, played earnestly by Ricky Waugh, is a patriot dedicated to his mission of helping Iraqis.

Packer said Betrayed ''started with a simple feeling -- dismay and anger at the news that Iraqis I knew were being abandoned to their fate. . . . In Iraq, we've [the U.S.] failed as a country.'' That sentiment is echoed in the play by Adnan, who says, ``The Americans can't let us in -- if they do, it will be an acknowledgment of their failure.''

In the end, he still sees the good in us, and Packer, in this mea culpa, admires, or maybe longs for that. ''I can never blame the Americans alone. It's the Iraqis who destroyed their country, with the help of the Americans,'' Adnan says. ``To this day, I dream of America.''

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