T. CHARLES ERICKSON PHOTO
The Pulitzer-winning Disgraced raced to the top of the “most produced plays at regional theaters nationwide” list for this season after rousing successes in Chicago in 2012 and Broadway in 2014. The Long Wharf Theatre didn’t used to be part of the pack of theaters that produce the latest hot things — it was, and still is, in the rarified realm of regionals that frequently creates those new hot things that other theaters glom onto a year or two later.
But in recent Long Wharf seasons we’ve had Clybourne Park, Bad Jews, brownsville song (b‑side for tray) and now Disgraced — and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Disgraced concerns a man named Amir who is equal parts secure and insecure. He’s a high-powered lawyer who knows that he’s good at his job, and who has put in more than enough time and energy to rate being made a partner at the firm where he’s worked dutifully for years. Yet Amir is aware of being treated differently at work and subject to anti-Muslim prejudice because of his South Asian heritage. At home, Amir’s life — his strong character when he’s demeaned unfairly in public, his confident air at work — informs the artwork of his wife Emily, who is described in the Disgraced script as “early 30s, white, lithe and lovely.”
The play runs through Nov. 8.
As the play begins, Amir is put in a situation by a relative that the lawyer sagely predicts will be misunderstood and misconstrued. He makes his choice, and there are consequences, in what is just the opening volley of Ahtar’s sharp script, which piles on several other, more personal, social difficulties: disputes with Emily, with his work colleague Jory, and with Jory’s husband Isaac (who, is this closed circle of a drama, is an art dealer interested in Emily’s Muslim-themed artwork).
Disgraced is not afraid to be grandly melodramatic. It is studded with sudden outbursts, shocking revelations, and devastating breakdowns. Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller wrote with the same grandiosity, and when a play is actually about something, such volatile exchanges help raise the level of debate.
Long Wharf Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein, who happens to have directed O’Neill and Miller plays at Long Wharf, as well as the equally incendiary Sam Shepard, Athol Fugard, and a number of contemporary social dramatists, knows how to balance a play like Disgraced so that it’s not all shouty. There’s a sit-down four-person dinner scene two-thirds of the way into the play that threatens to get tedious, but Edelstein choreographs some terrific touch-feely interplay between Jory and Isaac that not only adds some flash to an otherwise downbeat scene, but sets the stage for romantic complications later on.
The actors playing Amir (Rajesh Bose) and Isaac (Benim Foster) have appeared in other productions of Disgraced before this one, and have their rhythms and attitudes down pat; the men’s showdown late in the play promises fireworks due to how intense and internalized these tightly wound performances are. The two women in the cast have even more important roles. The characters are at least as strong-willed as their partners, and have just as compelling choices to make regarding issues of trust, privacy, and cultural heritage, both at home and in their public lives. Nicole Lawrence as Emily is in love with her husband, but isn’t a pushover, and actively questions some of his decisions. Shirine Babb plays Jory as a loving wife, as a work partner who must be competitive and practical, and as a woman with her own sociocultural, political, and racial issues. There’s much more nuance to the female characters in the play than to the aggressive, headstrong males. (There’s a third man in the play as well — Amir’s nephew Abe, played by Mohit Gautam, who’s not as well constructed and basically represents youthful idealism.)
Disgraced isn’t one of those plays that uses thinly drawn characters to make a quaint question of morality into a play. The roles are complex. The lives and relationships of the characters complicate their decisions, which is exactly the right approach to a play about assimilation, family, and work obligations and the difference between one’s religious beliefs and day-to-day reality. Disgraced is not a cut-and-dry political parable. It’s got humor, affection, and even insights into the work of the painter Diego Velazquez.
The protagonists of Disgraced must defend their actions to their loved ones, even as they fall into indefensible behavior. The humanity and specificity of the play gives it its power, and the Long Wharf gives the play a clear, clean, swift-moving production on a comfortable set designed by Lee Savage and a similarly light sound design by David Van Tieghem. Disgraced doesn’t need any technical pyrotechnics to move it along. The low-key presentation is just right. The music doesn’t need to be suspenseful here, and it’s not. The set doesn’t need to be angular and busy, and it’s not. Given its themes of racial divisions, bigotry, backbiting, and marital discord — given that it openly references 9/11 — the whole production of Disgraceful could be a lot more strident, over-the-top, merciless, and disgrace-filled than it is. Blessedly, it’s not.
Disgraced plays through Nov. 8 at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. Tickets are $25-$85. More information is at (203) 787‑4244.
