Disgraced (2016) - Trailer (Drama, Play)
- 8 years ago
Took my sister Sylvia to see the play "Disgraced" at the Mark Taper Theater in downtown Los Angeles Saturday night. This play won a Pulitzer Prize and deals very eloquently (and timely) about the rise of the so-called Islamic State and also deals with the interaction between faith and culture. The following is a review of the play from the New York Times:
“Bon appétit!” The festive phrase announcing the start of a meal sounds more like a bell signaling another round in a prizefight when it is chirped by Gretchen Mol, playing a hostess whose dinner party has become a verbal jousting tournament in Ayad Akhtar’s terrific, turbulent drama “Disgraced.”
By this point in the play, the nerves of everyone settling down to eat have been scraped raw. It’s hard to concentrate on your fennel and anchovy salad when the conversation over cocktails has descended into a fierce debate about the rise of Islamic terrorism and the basic tenets or the meaning of the Quran.
Mr. Akhtar’s play, which was first seen in New York in 2012 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, has come roaring back to life on Broadway in a first-rate production directed by Kimberly Senior that features an almost entirely new cast. In the years since it was first produced here, the play’s exploration of the conflicts between modern culture and Islamic faith, as embodied by the complicated man at its center — a Pakistani-born, thoroughly assimilated New Yorker — have become ever more pertinent. The rise of the so-called Islamic State, and the news that radicalized Muslims from Europe and the United States have joined the conflict raging in Syria and Iraq, brings an even keener edge to Mr. Akhtar’s engrossing drama.
At first blush, Amir (Hari Dhillon) seems to be in admirable possession of an American-dream life. He’s a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, which explains the immaculate apartment with a terrace to make any New Yorker salivate. His wife, Emily (Ms. Mol), is a painter on track to be included in a new show at the Whitney. Emily has begun a portrait of Amir inspired by a Velazquez painting of his Moorish assistant. An incident with a waiter at a restaurant the night before brought Amir’s ethnic heritage to the fore, and Emily has become intrigued by the gap “between what he was assuming about you, and what you really are”: words that will prove eerily prophetic as the drama unfolds.
Amir long ago left behind the Islamic faith he was raised in, but the treatment of Muslims in post-Sept. 11 America has become a fraught subject, because his young nephew Abe (Danny Ashok) has been urging Amir to help in the defense of an imam who has been accused of raising money for Hamas. Amir visited the imam but doesn’t want to get further involved. Both Emily and Abe — who, like Amir, is a smoothly assimilated American, having changed his name from Hussein to ease his way — urge him to do more.
Amir’s resistance is eventually worn down, with consequences that will prove significant as Mr. Akhtar’s drama moves from a slow simmer to a hard boil. A few months have passed after the first scene, and Emily and Amir are hosting a small dinner for one of Amir’s colleagues, Jory (Karen Pittman, the lone holdover from the original New York cast), who is also an up-and-comer at the firm, and her husband, Isaac (the nerdy-sexy Josh Radnor of “How I Met Your Mother” fame). He happens to be the Whitney curator intrigued by Emily’s explorations of Islamic tradition in her work, and he opens the evening on a cheerful note by announcing that her work will be in a new show at the museum about the “sacred” in art.
Amir, who has been unsettled by a recent conversation at work about his background — inspired, he suspects, by a newspaper article referring to his support for the imam — bridles when Isaac begins to opine about the difference between Islam and “Islamo-fascism.” Amir scorns the distinction, describing the Quran as “one very long hate mail letter to humanity.”
And yet, as he downs more Scotch, brooding about his status at the firm, Amir begins to reveal that his attitude toward his Muslim heritage isn’t quite as simple as he has been presenting it. He cannot erase an atavistic sense of pride in the powerful rise of Islamism — despite the violence it has engendered. When an incensed Isaac asks if this pride swelled in his Charvet-shirt-wearing breast after the Sept. 11 attacks, Amir’s answer only raises the temperature in the room.
Although “Disgraced” runs under 90 minutes, with no intermission, Mr. Akhtar packs an impressive amount of smart, heated talk — as well as a few surprising twists, including a shocking burst of violence — into the play’s taut duration. Ms. Senior, who directed the play’s New York premiere, for Lincoln Center Theater, as well as its world premiere in Chicago, continues to find fresh currents of dramatic electricity.
“Bon appétit!” The festive phrase announcing the start of a meal sounds more like a bell signaling another round in a prizefight when it is chirped by Gretchen Mol, playing a hostess whose dinner party has become a verbal jousting tournament in Ayad Akhtar’s terrific, turbulent drama “Disgraced.”
By this point in the play, the nerves of everyone settling down to eat have been scraped raw. It’s hard to concentrate on your fennel and anchovy salad when the conversation over cocktails has descended into a fierce debate about the rise of Islamic terrorism and the basic tenets or the meaning of the Quran.
Mr. Akhtar’s play, which was first seen in New York in 2012 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, has come roaring back to life on Broadway in a first-rate production directed by Kimberly Senior that features an almost entirely new cast. In the years since it was first produced here, the play’s exploration of the conflicts between modern culture and Islamic faith, as embodied by the complicated man at its center — a Pakistani-born, thoroughly assimilated New Yorker — have become ever more pertinent. The rise of the so-called Islamic State, and the news that radicalized Muslims from Europe and the United States have joined the conflict raging in Syria and Iraq, brings an even keener edge to Mr. Akhtar’s engrossing drama.
At first blush, Amir (Hari Dhillon) seems to be in admirable possession of an American-dream life. He’s a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, which explains the immaculate apartment with a terrace to make any New Yorker salivate. His wife, Emily (Ms. Mol), is a painter on track to be included in a new show at the Whitney. Emily has begun a portrait of Amir inspired by a Velazquez painting of his Moorish assistant. An incident with a waiter at a restaurant the night before brought Amir’s ethnic heritage to the fore, and Emily has become intrigued by the gap “between what he was assuming about you, and what you really are”: words that will prove eerily prophetic as the drama unfolds.
Amir long ago left behind the Islamic faith he was raised in, but the treatment of Muslims in post-Sept. 11 America has become a fraught subject, because his young nephew Abe (Danny Ashok) has been urging Amir to help in the defense of an imam who has been accused of raising money for Hamas. Amir visited the imam but doesn’t want to get further involved. Both Emily and Abe — who, like Amir, is a smoothly assimilated American, having changed his name from Hussein to ease his way — urge him to do more.
Amir’s resistance is eventually worn down, with consequences that will prove significant as Mr. Akhtar’s drama moves from a slow simmer to a hard boil. A few months have passed after the first scene, and Emily and Amir are hosting a small dinner for one of Amir’s colleagues, Jory (Karen Pittman, the lone holdover from the original New York cast), who is also an up-and-comer at the firm, and her husband, Isaac (the nerdy-sexy Josh Radnor of “How I Met Your Mother” fame). He happens to be the Whitney curator intrigued by Emily’s explorations of Islamic tradition in her work, and he opens the evening on a cheerful note by announcing that her work will be in a new show at the museum about the “sacred” in art.
Amir, who has been unsettled by a recent conversation at work about his background — inspired, he suspects, by a newspaper article referring to his support for the imam — bridles when Isaac begins to opine about the difference between Islam and “Islamo-fascism.” Amir scorns the distinction, describing the Quran as “one very long hate mail letter to humanity.”
And yet, as he downs more Scotch, brooding about his status at the firm, Amir begins to reveal that his attitude toward his Muslim heritage isn’t quite as simple as he has been presenting it. He cannot erase an atavistic sense of pride in the powerful rise of Islamism — despite the violence it has engendered. When an incensed Isaac asks if this pride swelled in his Charvet-shirt-wearing breast after the Sept. 11 attacks, Amir’s answer only raises the temperature in the room.
Although “Disgraced” runs under 90 minutes, with no intermission, Mr. Akhtar packs an impressive amount of smart, heated talk — as well as a few surprising twists, including a shocking burst of violence — into the play’s taut duration. Ms. Senior, who directed the play’s New York premiere, for Lincoln Center Theater, as well as its world premiere in Chicago, continues to find fresh currents of dramatic electricity.