DISGRACED is the story of a successful Muslim-American attorney who has renounced his religion and secured a coveted piece of the American Dream. Living high above Manhattan's Upper East Side, he and his artist wife host an intimate dinner party that is about to explode. Witty banter turns to vicious debate, and with each cocktail comes a startling new confession, painting an unforgettable portrait of our perception of race and religion.
Reviewing DISGRACED at LCT3 for The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote:
"This rollicking new play by Ayad Akhtar is a continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world. The dialogue bristles with wit and intelligence. Mr. Akhtar puts contemporary attitudes toward religion under a microscope, revealing how tenuous self-image can be for people born into one way of being who have embraced another."
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...have become ever more pertinent...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...continues to find fresh currents of dramatic electricity...Most important, Mr. Dillon, who played Amir in a London production, brings a coiled intensity to his performance that makes Amir's increasing antagonism all the more unsettling. Flickering underneath his cool, crisp exterior is a pilot light of resentment that holds the key to the play's eventually devastating denouement.
Akhtar's blistering 'Disgraced' opened Thursday on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre with a punch and power that won it a Pulitzer Prize. Few playwrights are examining what Akhtar does, certainly not with his insightfulness, and his play is breathtaking -- and not a little uncomfortable -- to watch. In the best of ways. An excellent five-person cast led by Hari Dhillon -- and beautifully directed by Kimberly Senior -- starts the play with swagger and confidence, building to horrific exchanges in which they are at each other's throats...Dhillon nails the master-of-the-universe strut and moves across the stage almost like a boxer when his anger is fueled, making his fall all the more painful, while Mol skillfully lets a silent gulf slowly emerge between her and her husband. But perhaps the best performances are turned in by Radnor (TV's 'How I Met Your Mother') and Pittman (Broadway's 'Good People'), two natural stage actors who get to be funny, outraged, needy, broken and feisty -- and manage to do it all in the 90-minute work.
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