Disgraced
Tickets from $38 Buy Tickets
Cititour.com Review
Are we defined by our race or religion, no matter what we do to escape it, ignore it, or avoid it? That is just one of many thought-provoking queries prompted by Ayad Akhtar’s taut Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Disgraced”, now at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre. If you’re not afraid of facing the tough truth about the world – or yourself – make sure you check out this provocative play.
Even those theatergoers who saw the piece previously at its New York premiere at LCT3 two years ago should strongly consider a return visit. True, they may remember some of the revelations that will shock first-time viewers, and that repetition of experience may lessen some of the play’s impact. But the mostly new cast pulled together by director Kimberly Senior gives the play a decidedly different dimension from its previous outing.
The work focuses on Amir Kapoor (Hari Dhillon), a highly successful corporate lawyer with a gorgeous Upper East Side apartment (nicely rendered by the invaluable John Lee Beatty) and an equally beautiful wife, a white American artist named Emily (Gretchen Mol). As we soon learn, Amir has not just changed his surname to appear Indian rather than Muslim, but essentially renounced the Islamic faith into which he was born.
However, Emily’s recent interest in Islam and its artistic tradition, as well as the legal support that she and Amir’s nephew “Abe” (a very fine Danny Ashok) want him to lend to a jailed Imam, end up bringing Amir’s hatred of his native religion, and more importantly his long-buried self-hatred, to the forefront. Things come to a boil during a dinner party that the already troubled Abe and Emily host for their close friends, Isaac (Josh Radnor), a Jewish art curator who has the power to put Emily into his latest show, and his wife, Jory (Karen Pittman), a smart, sassy, and somewhat caustic African-American attorney who works closely with Amir at his law firm. It takes just a little Scotch and a few nasty remarks for this seemingly amiable gathering to too-quickly disintegrate -- and once the secrets everyone has been keeping from one another come to the fore, all four lives are irrevocably changed.
Dhillon, who played Amir in the show’s British production, has such a likeable, level-headed quality in the show’s earlier scenes that when he acts irrationally during the party, his “breakdown” is all-the-more shocking. Mol does well enough by her underdeveloped role as the naïve Emily, and certainly gains our sympathy late in the play.
Radnor, who is basically unrecognizable from his nine-year stint as Ted on CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother,” is particularly impressive. While his Isaac is slightly arrogant from the get-go, we can’t help but be taken aback at the levels of deceit and vitriol he eventually reveals. He also plays well off of Pittman – the lone holdover from the LCT3 cast -- who is once again superb as the sharp-tongued, truth-telling Jory. While she gets copious laughs with her delivery of some quick-witted zingers, this talented actress also brilliantly handles some of Akthar’s most piercing lines about race.
“Disgraced” remains one of the few 90-minute plays that may feel too short; the dinner party scene, in particular, needs to be fleshed out to be fully believable. Still, the work is more than substantial enough to not just keep you engrossed during its brief stage time, but to keep you thinking for hours, if not days, after the curtain has come down.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.disgracedonbroadway.com
Cast
Danny Ashok, Hari Dhillion, Gretchen Mol, Karen Pittman, Josh Radnor
Open/Close Dates
Opening 10/23/2014
Closing 3/1/2015
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 9/27/2014
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
212-239-6200
Theatre Info
Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
Comments
Sign up for our newsletter !