Theater Review: Disgraced

ST PETERSBURG  American Stage opened the regional premiere of Ayad Akhtar s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced on Friday night in downtown St. Pete.

The play tells the story of Amir Kapoor, a highly-successful Pakistani-American attorney who has made a great effort to distance himself from his cultural identity, especially among the partners at the prestigious Jewish law firm where he is employed and hopes to make partner. This often causes tension between Amir and Emily, his Caucasian American wife a visual artist with superficially progressive ideological values who tends to fetishize Islamic culture, even focusing much of her work on exploring the themes of its art.

For a play that opened in 2012 and was undoubtedly a bold story given its relative proximity to the events of September 11, 2001, in many ways, it is increasingly relevant more than a decade later, as the conversation about various subgroups within American culture has escalated dramatically, contributing to a much broader cultural divide.

For most of the 20th century, immigration to America and many Western countries had been largely aspirational, dominated by emigres from nations that had enjoyed relatively good relationships with the U.S., at least in recent history, along with immigrants escaping dour circumstances in their native countries for which American empire was not seen as a primary antagonist. This was a foundational component of the so-called American Dream, as seen from the outside.

As some of those patterns began to shift toward escaping to the West because of conditions that many of the immigrants saw as a result of American empire and/or Western imperialism, the idea of assimilation became more divisive. Whereas many immigrants who came here with more favorable feelings toward America had espoused a love-it-or-leave-it mentality where assimilation is prized often at the cost of preserving cultural traditions among ensuing generations who became fully Americanized such attitudes are largely considered conservative notions among modern liberals who advocate for cultural individualism, often with a dose of self-loathing regarding America s historical role in the shaping of geopolitics.

While there is undoubtedly much to explore in this complicated dynamic, it would be difficult to argue that our society was not more united in the days when throngs of immigrants from places like Ireland, Italy, Cuba, and many South American, and Eastern European countries embraced the idea of becoming American, while voluntarily shedding language and many cultural traditions to embrace those of their adopted homelands, while insisting that their children did the same.

The dynamic itself along with the sharp changes we ve experienced in the 21st century is at the heart of Disgraced. Amir, played with graceful intensity by Ahsan Ali, is an apostate, meaning he has renounced Islam. He claims Indian heritage, despite his Pakistani roots, because the former enjoys better standing, as it is not a predominantly Muslim country and has been traditionally seen as a much closer ally to the U.S. within the so-called War on Terror.

Amir justifies doing so by pointing out that carving Pakistan out of India was a Westen construct. Although in making this point, he is essentially feeding the Western liberal position back to his critics including his wife they roundly reject his condemnation of the religion as an antiquated and inherently-violent ideology born in response to the brutally-unforgivable landscape of desert life in primitive times.

As such, Amir is accused of everything from the misrepresentation of his own culture by outsiders to inexplicable self-hatred, fostered by the en-vogue nature of creating a hard division between a beautiful culture and the misuse of its religion by fanatics. He takes the position that in theocratic societies like the one he grew up in, by definition, there is no separation between the two, but with little success.

Ironically, as a dinner party conversation between the couple and a black co-worker at his firm and her Caucasian Jewish husband (who is also in the art world) devolves into an odious debate on the matter, Amir reveals his first sense of cultural pride only for it to be rejected with extreme prejudice when it strays from the accepted progressive narrative.

Disgraced is earthshaking in its powerful dramatic peaks crescendos that are the culmination of expertly ratcheted tension for which the lever has been slowly turned to the breaking point. It forces the audience to engage in a difficult discussion on a decidedly difficult subject.

The play is messy and complicated in a way that mirrors life much more honestly and true to form than most and offers little in the way of resolution, suggesting somewhat openly that there may not be one at hand. In short, Disgraced is precisely the kind of material that we need more of, much more of, especially if we are to transcend our current ideological and cultural gridlocks.

Madeleine Russell does an excellent job of portraying an extremely dislikable character in Emily, an archetypical member of the fashionable Manhattan art scene who drips privilege while not only parroting the shallow mainstream talking points of so-called limousine liberals but fashioning them into a lifestyle and perhaps even an identity.

Natasha Hakata gives a powerful performance as Jory, who breaks with stereotypes by providing the perspective of a somewhat conservative black NYC attorney, explaining that when you ve pulled yourself up from nothing, you tend to prefer order over justice. Completing the equally-yolked main foursome, Liam MacDougall turns in a strong performance as her husband, Isaac.

In a lesser but very crucial role, Shivam Patel manages to steal some scenes as Abe, Amir s all-but-radicalized nephew who embodies the perspective of the defiant second-generation Middle Eastern immigrant who is far less entranced with America than their parents who have chosen to escape here and remain willing to unquestionably play by the rules in exchange for sanctuary and economic opportunity. In the penultimate scene of the play, his character gives voice to its most poignant theme, and Patel s riveting delivery is jarringly felt.

Jennifer Fok earns a nod with creative lighting that accommodates a haunting slow-motion device employed throughout the play, creating a sensation of dreams in which the subject is desperately attempting to move through water despite being on land, seeming to symbolize the impotence felt by characters at various stages of the story. The place and period-perfect set by Afsaneh Aayani is simple but elegant, and the appropriately posh wardrobes by Dian El-Aziz ring true without fail.

Disgraced runs through June 25. Visit the American Stage website for schedule and ticket information.