Theater: Disgraced at Princeton McCarter imperfectly tackles the tensions of multiculturalism
Disgraced, the Pulitzer prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar, has been having quite a run. It is apparently the most-produced play in the US since its 2012 debut in Chicago and New York. I caught up with it in beautifully autumnal Princeton Friday, in a McCarter Theatre Center production shared with the Guthrie in Minneapolis and with the Milwaukee Rep. While I saw and admired the forceful tackling of what is now a worldwide issue (assimilation vs. maintenance of cultural distinctiveness vs. racism), I think the play has structural problems that undercut the message.
Disgraced is essentially a four character play, two couples that come together for a doomed dinner party, a la Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Like that play, simmering personal and interpersonal issues come to a violent cathartic head at the end of the play. The central character is Amir (portrayed effectively by Mabound Ebrahimzadeh), an American born of Pakistani muslim immigrants, who is part of an elite NYC mergers-and-acquisitions law firm (but not a full partner, critically). He has changed his birth name to an Indian one to conceal his Pakistani identity, an action he rationalizes as necessary to further his ambitious career. Much of the play deals with how Amir and those around him accept or reject his overt efforts to advance himself in a conservative American culture. Moral compass is provided by the fifth character, his nephew Abe, who is outraged over US anti-muslim sentiment and tries to get the reluctant Amir to help him defend an imprisoned imam. At core, this is a very effective basis for a study in repression, guilt, and the degree to which we are or are not defined by our cultural heritage.
The problem is that, in an attempt to deliver an intense gut punch, the playwright does not build in adequate time to develop the four characters in 90 minutes. In plays of O'Neill, in Virginia Woolf and in the also-related August, Osage County the climactic conflicts/revelations are heightened by a longer structure in which the intensity ebbs and flows, characters chat and develop, and we learn about them in all ranges of emotional intensity and in both normal and stressed situations. Hence, we care about them and see parts of ourselves in them when the ultimate conflict arises. Then we see and reflect upon the core reasons for their dysfunctional behavior. Disgraced lacks this developmental breadth. It crescendos to an ending frenzy of cultural, marital, and psychological problems, and only Amir's character is adequately developed so I really cared about how the conflict resolved. The others in the dinner party were more caricatures: his wife Emily is Caucasian, cloying nice and facilitating, and mostly an anti-Amir (although her own tragic flaw emerges near the end as part of the climactic frenzy-cocktail). The counterpoint dinner party couple is Isaac (a cynical Jewish arts dealer) and Jory (a forceful black lawyer in Amir's firm). Isaac seems reasonable until pushed on Israel, then retreats into anti-semitic accusations, and Jory, very undeveloped as a character, seems to be present to show that American blacks can be order-obsessed financial climbers too. It was unfortunate that the women (unlike Martha in Virginia Woolf) are largely written as counterpoints to the men, rather than as freestanding characters. This is particularly regrettable in a play that tackles the stereotypes of Islam and violence against women. Lastly, the young nephew Abe (well played by Adit Dileep) ends up in an ambiguous embrace of fundamentalism, chillingly prescient in a play written in 2012 before the recent experience with American converts to the ISIL, but again tossed into the play-ending cataclysm stew in an attempt to encompass as many themes as possible.
I wish the playwright had not attempted to deal with every stereotype, every problem in 90 minutes. He has a good feel for dialogue and building a scene, but not yet for building an integrated play. I hope he can develop this, as his unique voice is needed in coming to terms with the dark side of our complex multiculturalism.
Disgraced is essentially a four character play, two couples that come together for a doomed dinner party, a la Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Like that play, simmering personal and interpersonal issues come to a violent cathartic head at the end of the play. The central character is Amir (portrayed effectively by Mabound Ebrahimzadeh), an American born of Pakistani muslim immigrants, who is part of an elite NYC mergers-and-acquisitions law firm (but not a full partner, critically). He has changed his birth name to an Indian one to conceal his Pakistani identity, an action he rationalizes as necessary to further his ambitious career. Much of the play deals with how Amir and those around him accept or reject his overt efforts to advance himself in a conservative American culture. Moral compass is provided by the fifth character, his nephew Abe, who is outraged over US anti-muslim sentiment and tries to get the reluctant Amir to help him defend an imprisoned imam. At core, this is a very effective basis for a study in repression, guilt, and the degree to which we are or are not defined by our cultural heritage.
The problem is that, in an attempt to deliver an intense gut punch, the playwright does not build in adequate time to develop the four characters in 90 minutes. In plays of O'Neill, in Virginia Woolf and in the also-related August, Osage County the climactic conflicts/revelations are heightened by a longer structure in which the intensity ebbs and flows, characters chat and develop, and we learn about them in all ranges of emotional intensity and in both normal and stressed situations. Hence, we care about them and see parts of ourselves in them when the ultimate conflict arises. Then we see and reflect upon the core reasons for their dysfunctional behavior. Disgraced lacks this developmental breadth. It crescendos to an ending frenzy of cultural, marital, and psychological problems, and only Amir's character is adequately developed so I really cared about how the conflict resolved. The others in the dinner party were more caricatures: his wife Emily is Caucasian, cloying nice and facilitating, and mostly an anti-Amir (although her own tragic flaw emerges near the end as part of the climactic frenzy-cocktail). The counterpoint dinner party couple is Isaac (a cynical Jewish arts dealer) and Jory (a forceful black lawyer in Amir's firm). Isaac seems reasonable until pushed on Israel, then retreats into anti-semitic accusations, and Jory, very undeveloped as a character, seems to be present to show that American blacks can be order-obsessed financial climbers too. It was unfortunate that the women (unlike Martha in Virginia Woolf) are largely written as counterpoints to the men, rather than as freestanding characters. This is particularly regrettable in a play that tackles the stereotypes of Islam and violence against women. Lastly, the young nephew Abe (well played by Adit Dileep) ends up in an ambiguous embrace of fundamentalism, chillingly prescient in a play written in 2012 before the recent experience with American converts to the ISIL, but again tossed into the play-ending cataclysm stew in an attempt to encompass as many themes as possible.
I wish the playwright had not attempted to deal with every stereotype, every problem in 90 minutes. He has a good feel for dialogue and building a scene, but not yet for building an integrated play. I hope he can develop this, as his unique voice is needed in coming to terms with the dark side of our complex multiculturalism.
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