On and Off Broadway

'Disgraced'

A Review by Elyse Trevers

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Guests gathered around the dinner table are a typical theatrical device for Broadway plays. In Disgraced, the Pulitzer-Prize winning play by Ayad Akhtar, four different ethnicities comprising two mixed marriages offer multiple possibilities.

The focal character is a lawyer named Amir (well-played by Hari Dhillon). He is a man caught between two worlds. He distances himself from his Muslim world in favor of the affluent New York world of $600 shirts, Zabar’s, and leek and avocado salads. Amir is living the American Dream, even marrying a beautiful white WASP wife, Emily (Gretchen Mol). He’s disdainful of the teachings of the Koran, even mocking them to shock Emily and her art dealer Isaac (Joshua Radnor). She is enamored of Islamic culture and art and urges Amir to visit an imprisoned cleric who’s been accused of terrorism. When Amir’s name appears in The New York Times, the implication is that he is the counsel for the cleric, causing Amir’s carefully constructed life to fall asunder.

Later, Isaac and his wife, Jory, Amir’s colleague (the talented Karen Pittman), come for dinner, and the tension becomes palpable, with characters just waiting to explode. When they finally do, there’s an audible gasp from many in the theater. Although the sophisticated Lyceum Theatre audience has seen much, the language and sudden violence of the play are startling. The play is thought-provoking and gripping, particularly in the dinner scene. But it’s also empty and pretentious, especially when characters discuss the attributes of art.

Inspired by Velasquez’s painting of his Moorish slave, Emily paints Amir in a similar portrait, inviting comparisons between the two men. The play ends with Amir alone and adrift, gazing at the portrait. Are his thoughts of his unsettled future or his shattered past? Unlike many other plays, Disgraced doesn’t end when the curtain goes down. It follows the audience out to the subway, LIRR and parking garage, leaving much to discuss and ponder about identity and culture and what they cost.