PlayMakers Repertory Company has opened its 2015-16 Mainstage season with an unusually powerful recent drama. Ayad Akhtar‘s Disgraced won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2013; this season it is the most-produced play in the US, according to American Theatre Magazine. The play is of its time, certainly, and highly relevant because of its topic, but the deeper themes will serve to make it timeless. The PRC production, directed by Shishir Kurup, leaves you with much to think on — after you’ve gotten over the body-slam of its dilemmas and tragedies, and its astonishing array of insults.
There is not a good way to recap this play without making it sound slight, or giving away its many shattering twists. But briefly: Amir, a Pakistani-American and Muslim apostate, is a mergers and acquisitions attorney in New York who has labored with willing spirit for years in hopes of becoming a partner and seeing his own name alongside those of his Jewish colleagues in the company name. His wife, Emily, a white American, is a painter and advocate for Islamic culture. Their “friends” Isaac and Jory are, respectively, a Jewish-American art curator at the Whitney and a black American corporate attorney at the same firm as Amir. And then there’s Abe/Hussein, Amir’s nephew, a teenager actively searching for a viable self-identity as a brown person in post-9/11 USA. He is the instigating character who sets off the chain of events that leads to the devolution of the foursome’s relationship, and to Amir’s disgrace.
Along the way, playwright Akhtar skins and guts any number of social absurdities — his send up of the art curator is priceless — so that one laughs, even as the tension builds. You don’t have to know anything about the play to realize early on that something terrible is going to happen, that the veneers of civility will crack and peel away before you. (It reminds one of both God of Carnage and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in this way.) And from the first scene, you understand that Emily, with her cultural appropriation of Islamic forms and her incomplete understanding of Islamic culture, is going to unwittingly bring about the wreck. (Blessedly, Akhtar refrains from using the terms “cultural appropriation” and “cultural imperialism” even while scrutinizing the subjects.)
Shishir Kurup directs with extraordinary skill. He raises the intensity at such a gentle pace that you are in a state of twanging anxiety before you know how you got there, and still he leaves you unprepared for the blow-up. Rajesh Bose gave a heart-wringing performance as Amir. As his secrets and his rage were revealed and his behavior breached the bounds of the acceptable, he became more and more pitiable and lovable. His final scene amidst the wreckage of his life had a verisimilitude rarely seen on stage. He literally shrank into himself, imploded.
Nicole Gabriella Scipione was excellent as Emily, happily paddling on the surface of her easy beliefs, until she was sucked under in their riptide. Rasool Jahan was fantastic as Jory, cool as could be until an incident fanned the latent flame in her. Benjamin Curns, the only PRC/UNC cast member, played his pompous curator to a T. Samip Raval as the young nephew was very touching, but sometimes difficult to hear.
The scenic design by Nephelie Andonyadis is clean and informative, as is Geoff Korf’s lighting, which changes subtly with the changing tone of the proceedings. Bruno Louchouarn’s sound design is equally subtle and very affecting. Altogether, this was a tight production of an important play — one that successfully combines careful thinking with tragic drama. Most highly recommended.
Disgraced continues through Sunday, October 4. For more details on this production, please view the sidebar.
