Review: Racial, Religious Tensions Flare Up Over Dinner in 'Disgraced'
8 / 10
There are some topics you just shouldn't discuss at a dinner party. Religion, race, politics -- it's probably good to avoid these controversial matters altogether, and focus on more agreeable subjects. Like the weather. Perhaps if the two couples in 'Disgraced' would have taken that advice, they would have avoided a whole lot of trouble and pain. Then again, if the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar, now open at the Lyceum Theatre, stayed away from such discourse, we wouldn't have been treated to one of the season's most engaging nights of theater...It's easily the most impassioned dinner scenes on Broadway since 'August: Osage County,' and one that playwright Akhtar crafts beautifully. His dialogue is intelligent and superb -- his characters so complex yet well-defined -- that you'll travel along the ride of emotions and ideas not knowing where you're going next. And like any good roller coaster, the final drop will leave your heart in the pit of your stomach.
