By William Wolf

DISGRACED  Send This Review to a Friend

Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced,” with its high-powered dramatic confrontations, ponders the conflicts engulfing a Muslim immigrant’s desire to assimilate despite his being considered an outsider and his own ties to his Islamic roots and the behavior that he was taught as a child. Thwarted assimilation by the ethnic groups has long been a subject for exploration, but the focus on Muslims in the light of 9/11 and ISIS gives this play a contemporary impact and is likely to produce split reactions depending on one’s political outlook.

The action revolves around Amir, superbly acted by Hari Dhillon, who captures the emotionally torn complexity of the character. Amir, a lawyer, worked his way up into an important position in a legal firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, but has lied in his bio by claiming to have been born in India, not Pakistan, where had a strict Muslim upbringing. As much as he has attempted to assimilate and discard vestiges of the Muslim religion that he purports to reject, his background makes him suspect. The situation is heightened by a newspaper account of his presence at the trial of an imam accused of supporting terrorism. Amir has attended at the urging of his militant and impassioned nephew, Abe, played with intensity by Danny Ashok. The newspaper report, Amir argues, makes him appear as if he were an attorney for the defense, very upsetting to the honchos in his law firm.

Amir is married to Emily, played nicely with steady intelligence by Gretchen Mol, who is an artist and fascinated with Islamic art, reflected in her work, rather odd for someone of her background. We see her at the start of the play painting a portrait of Amir inspired by a Velazquez painting of his assistant, a Moor.

Friends of Amir and Emily invited to dinner are an interracial couple--the Jewish Isaac (Josh Radnor), a curator who is including Emily’s paintings in an important museum exhibit, and his African-American wife, Jory (Karin Pittman), who is a colleague of Amir in the law firm where they practice.

The evening turns out to be a dinner party from hell, as clashing values and venom that Amir harbors deep down rise to a level of viciousness. The situation is fueled by a revelation of infidelity, which I first thought superfluous, but which, it turns out, ignites an eruption of violence.

Before the play concludes, not only the futility of Amir’s attempt to assimilate is bared, but his emotional ties to his roots take over and newly define his life, leaving the impression that Muslim militancy is very legitimate no matter how shocking that may be to others. “Disgraced,” tautly directed by Kimberly Senior, not only holds one’s attention despite its being overloaded with plot, but will make one think about the characters and the issues that the playwright explores. At the Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street. Phone: 212-239-6200. Reviewed October 30, 2014

  

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