Velazquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, a liberated slave who tried to become a gentleman Spaniard but could not due to racial and class prejudice, dominates the opening scene of Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced. The uncovering in the play’s final scene of a portrait of anti-hero Amir indicates parallels between his and Pareja’s fates. Racial and religious differences may have made it impossible for them to assimilate completely in the dominant society. But do they cause Amir to be well described by the play’s title? Or do his words and actions merit the description? From a Palestinian family, lawyer Amir is the opposite of an Islamist, whose art heavily influences Amir’s Caucasian wife Emily. When his nephew, who has changed his name to Abe, with clothes and manners to match, asks Amir to help an unjustly jailed Imam, Amir refuses. Not only Amir’s sympathies and beliefs cause his reaction. He’s up for major promotion in a Manhattan firm owned by Jews. But all his denigrations of the Koran’s tenets and precepts for living fail to deter Emily from persuading Amir to be pictured with the Imam. The couple host a dinner party to which they invite Isaac, an art curator who’s likely to announce he’s arranging a showing of Emily’s paintings. Isaac brings his African-American wife Jory, a lawyer in Amir’s firm. When conversation gets around to politics, Amir, fueled by too much alcohol, insults American actions and justifies Arab terrorism. Violence follows what Amir learns about Jory at his firm and, next, a connection between Emily and Isaac. Further, everything said and done powerfully indicates how politics and racism affect personal attitudes, relationships, and even commerce and art. Dorien Makhloghi had a tough job cut out for him as the conflicted and afflicting Amir, and he earns respect for meeting its demands. Lee Stark’s Emily is more of a cipher, but likely because the role is hardly motivated. Author Akhtar fails to make her secret anything but an unsubstantiated plot device. One might well wonder why Isaac ever married Jory, but Jordan Sobel almost softens Isaac’s betrayal. Snappy in her words and mien, Bianca LaVerne Jones stands out as Jory, actually a woman of consequence. Nik Sadhnani’s Abe at first reflects an atmosphere in which Arab-American assimilation seems possible, then later manifests changes that have taken place. Michael Donald Edwards’s direction is fluid and uncluttered yet impressive as Amir’s upscale NYC apartment designed with an off-center, almost arrowed ceiling by Reid Thompson. Michael Clark’s impressive whirling projections of geometric forms separate times and places. They’re usually accompanied by designer Ryan Rumery’s startling sound design. Beth Goldenberg’s costumes appropriately prefer denim for daytime and 2011-12 non-formal dinner dress for evening.
