How does a Pulitzer Prize prizing winning play written
several years ago simply become more and more relevant since it was first
produced? Is it a case of life imitating
art? Here is a play about an upcoming
corporate lawyer, Amir, attempting to become fully assimilated into the
cultural circle of professionals, to distance himself from his Muslim heritage
through marriage and lifestyle, only to watch that façade implode.
The unseen element in the play is the current political
environment, the result of a campaign full of invectives directed at, among
others, Muslims, and the resulting highly contested “Muslim travel ban” and
reports of illegal Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups and
deportations. Playwright Ayad Akhtar
might not have fully foreseen these extreme events when he wrote Disgraced, but after 9/11 he knew the xenophobic
direction it was taking us and its impact on a man of Islamic heritage.
Amir (Fajer Kaisi) and his wife Emily (Vanessa Morosco)
are pursuing the classic American Dream, living in a sophisticated Upper East
Side apartment, obviously possessing the resources to enjoy their professional
lives. The set by Anne Mundell and the
lighting by Paul Black telegraph Manhattan power couple. It is a crisp, contemporary setting with a
view of the Manhattan skyline from their balcony.
As a mergers and acquisition lawyer, Amir has acquired
all the trappings of master of his craft. Fajer Kaisi revels in his alpha male role, one
which takes him from brash overconfidence to a stunning reversal of fortune. He powerfully delivers this plunge with
steely skill. We first see him
stridently berating his paralegal for missing three words in a contract, screaming
into the phone “that’s why we pay you six figures!”
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| Fajer Kaisi and Eddie Morales |
Emily, an artist, accepts this behavior as perfectly
normal in her volatile husband who in turn is amused by and tolerates her
latest passionate love for Islamic Art, something acquired during their travels
in Moorish inspired Spain. While he mildly
encourages her latest works, it is also clear that he is not happy about this
obsession. Vanessa Morosco as Emily is a
highly accomplished actress who portrays a striving artist waiting for her
first big show, a wife devotedly in love who never fully grasps her husband’s
deepest insecurities and secrets.
Amir’s nephew, Abe, sensitively played by Eddie Morales
with wide-eyed adoration of his uncle is disturbed that a local Imam has been
falsely imprisoned. He feels this is politically
motivated, and the manifestation of growing Muslimophobia. He comes to his Aunt and Uncle for their
help. Emily urges her husband to lend his
professional legal advice. He loves his
wife and reluctantly agrees. Eventually
there is a trial. However Amir’s name is mentioned in a newspaper article about
the case although he wasn’t acting on behalf of the defendant, but suddenly his
firm is aware of his Islamic background, something he has conspicuously hidden.
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| Vanessa Morosco, Fajer Kaisi, Chantal Jean-Pierre, Joel Reuben Ganz |
The stage is set for a developing train wreck of a “dinner
with friends,” one Emily gives for Isaac (Joel Reuben Ganz ) an art gallery
owner who wants to exhibit her work and has more than a professional interest
in, and his wife, Jory (Chantal Jean-Pierre), who coincidentally works with
Amir in the same law firm. The evening devolves
into an increasingly revelatory and combative conversation between a Muslim
(albeit assimilated), a Jew, the African-American attorney and a WASP, where
Amir has to confront himself and his apostate views.
Both Joel Reuben Ganz and Chantal Jean-Pierre as the
interracial couple give outstanding, persuasive performances, Ganz a credible
foil to Kaisi’s Amir and Jean-Pierre's Jory providing some well timed comic lines. She comports herself with the precision of
another professional on the move to corporate greatness. The pot is stirred with a boiling brew of
high voltage issues, religion, the clash of cultures and civilizations;
Christian, Judaic, and Islamic, as well as the volatility and infidelity of both
marriages.
With the help of the ubiquitous truth-teller, alcohol,
Amir, who is already feeling deeply abased by his law firm is steadily driven
into the recesses of his ancestry to the point of uttering the unutterable,
that the crucible of 9/11 gave him some secret satisfaction; it is a pin-dropping
game changer in the play. Although he
defends the revelation as being “tribal” and “in his bones,” he has become
radioactive, meant to be shunned by the ultimate fall from grace. The contrast is striking. He is a broken man -- and the audience is left
to deliberate whether there is any hope for the millennium old conflict of religious
indoctrination and bias.
It is stunning, powerful theatre. As J. Barry Lewis, the seasoned director of
some 200 shows including many others at The Maltz as well as Dramaworks said “Disgraced focuses on the various ways
each of us secretly continue to hold on to our tribal identities – our
identities from birth, of our education – in spite of our various and ongoing
attempts to enlighten our lives. We are products of the world we create, often
finding safety in those tribal identities. The play has been called 'an evening
of cocktails and confessions,’ and it is certain to spark dialogue about our
own contradictions.” Lewis skillfully
brings those observations front and center utilizing a talented group of actors
and technical professionals.
In addition to Paul Black’s lighting, Lewis had Marty
Mets’ skillful sound design, the opening scene overlaying Middle Eastern music
with the sounds of the city below, segueing to the music alone during scene
changes and then, again, the unmistakable sounds of the city when Amir angrily opens
the door to their balcony, a reminder of the world from which he is suddenly ostracized. Leslye Menshouse’s costume design is chic, in
keeping with the sophisticated early 21st century Manhattan
professional environment, replete with Amir’s expensive dress shirts.
The Maltz Theatre typically presents musicals, the
majority of which are thoroughly outstanding.
They have also presented some remarkable serious theatre, Red and Other Desert Cities to name just a couple. Seeing Disgraced
there makes you yearn for more of these blockbusting dramas.
[Photographs of
the actors by Alicia Donelan]
