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| Rajesh Bose and Nicole Lowrance. Photo: T, Charles Erickson |
Prejudices Surface,
Identities Get Blurry – and Uncomfortable
By Lauren Yarger
When a Muslim, a Jew, an
African-American and a WASP start talking religion, it gets messy and before
the evening is over, friends and spouses discover they don’t really know each
other or themselves very well.
Welcome to the
compelling world of Ayad
Akhbar’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play Disgraced,
getting a run at Long Wharf Theatre. This production, tautly directed by Long Wharf’s
Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein, also will play at Boston’s Huntington
Theatre Jan 8-Feb. 7, 2016.
Rajesh
Bose reprises a role he has played before (for
PlayMakers Repertory in North Carolina): Amir, a former Muslim – whether there
even can be such a thing is one of the themes explored here – who has decided
to worship his career as a mergers and acquisitions attorney in New York
instead of the religion into which he was born. He rejects the archaic Quran
and the often violent religion it promotes. Accused of just “going through a
phase” by his nephew, Abe (Mohit Gautam), who has Americanized his name from Hussein, Amir replies that such
a phase is called “intelligence.”
If Amir feels a pull
toward his Pakistani roots, it is because his WASPy American artist wife, Emily,
(Nicole
Lowrance, who gives a very
strong performance) defends the religion and continually praises the beauty and
wisdom she finds in her studies of Islamic art. Her latest works have been
influenced by it and have earned her a spot in a new show being produced by
Isaac (Benim
Foster), who is married to Jory (Shirine Babb), an attorney vying for
partnership with Amir at their firm.
It’s Emily who sympathizes
with an imam accused of having terrorist ties and joins with Abe in urging Amir
to help. Would she be so quick to defend Islam if she knew that even his mother
thought all white women were whores, he asks? He eventually capitulates to
their pleas, but appearing to support the suspected terrorist has unpleasant
professional consequences for Amir.
When Isaac and Jory come
to dinner at Amir and Emily’s swank Manhattan apartment (designed by Lee Savage ), Amir has a few too many drinks and all hell
breaks loose as the conversation goes from “all religions have idiosyncrasies”
to a hate-filled round of “your religion is bad.”
It turns out that Amir
isn’t as removed from his religious upbringing as he thinks. He certainly has
some opinions that offend his Jewish and African-American guests (and us) like
thinking that blowing Israel off the map is a good idea and feeling “tribal”
pride over the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Later, Emily and Jory both tragically
find that their husbands’ views about how to treat their wives aren’t what they
thought they were either.
The play is intelligent
and witty – and very uncomfortable because of unspoken truths that lie just
beneath the surface. We don’t want to have to talk about these things, let
alone discuss them over dinner with friends, but the characters (all
excellently portrayed and well directed by Edelstein) don’t give us any
choice.
There is no escape
(there’s no intermission in the 90-minute play) and we are forced to explore
some of the deep-rooted thoughts we have about religion. We also have to face
the fact that the ugliness on stage could show up at our next dinner party too
if we and our guests were to serve up honest opinions about Islam and events
taking place as we speak throughout the world.
How much are we able to
separate ourselves from the roots of who we are? Not very, Akhbar would
seem to point out.
Disgraced runs at Long Wharf's Main Stage, 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven through Nov. 8. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 pm; Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 pm; Matinees Wednesday and Sunday at 2 pm, Saturdays at 3 pm. Tickets $25-$85: 203-787-4282; www.longwharf.org.
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