McCarter Theatre Center presents Ayad Akhtar's 'Disgraced'

Akhtar is a hot playwright, aided now by that most unlikely arts patron, Donald Trump. Both plays (and his novel American Dervish) concern U.S. Muslim lives post-9/11: how they perceive themselves, how others receive them, and what constitutes an American.

Election talk

Disgraced receives a fine glossy production by Princeton, New Jersey's McCarter Theatre Center, in a co-production with Minneapolis's Guthrie Theater and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, but today's election talk about Muslims makes the play, set in 2009, feel dated.

Well-off New Yorkers, fashionably diverse, clash in the play. Amir (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, a best actor nominee for The Invisible Hand) hides his Pakistani roots and Muslim heritage behind an adopted surname, "Kapoor," which his law firm assumes is Indian. Wife Emily (Caroline Kaplan) is a blonde white woman (or, some would say, "normal American") who, ironically, is an expert in traditional Muslim art. She's hoping her original work will be included in a show curated by friend Isaac (Kevin Isola), a Jewish man whose black wife Jory (Austene Van) works with Amir.

Amir clashes with nephew Abe (Adit Dileep), who adopted that American-sounding name, dropping "Hussein." Abe wants Amir to help a Muslim cleric accused of terrorist activities, but Amir fears that any association will hurt his career. The imam has other lawyers, but Abe objects that they're not Muslim.

Free-range conflict

A seemingly free-ranging dinner discussion between these cosmopolitan couples airs many pertinent issues, exposing Amir's fragile psyche and the racial and cultural tensions just below the surface of their friendships. He denies being Muslim, rejecting it as a religion about desert life in the seventh century, but wonders how much his upbringing rules his responses. Ebrahimzadeh plays Amir with humor and charm, revealing a man who's reinvented himself to fit into a culture wary of Muslims, but who now doesn't know who or what he is, as we find out in an explosion of violence that doesn't ring true, more because of the script than the performances, after secrets are revealed.

To some extent, the other characters do the same. All wear more palatable cultural identities in order to assimilate, and the play's dark descent occurs when those cloaks are ripped away.

Akhtar provides no easy answers in Disgraced, but raises provocative questions and issues that deserve attention, and cannot be resolved by changing immigration policies, requiring special identification, or building walls.

To read Dan Rottenberg's review of Philadelphia Theatre Company's 2015 production, click here.

To read Naomi Orwin's review of Philadelphia Theatre Company's 2015 production, click here.

To read Carol Rocamora's review of the original 2016 Lincoln Center production, click here.