BY ADAM M. SCHENCK
“Innovation” is a buzzword we hear often. It means to make something new, and we have become used to innovations changing our daily habits. How far away is your mobile phone right now?
Yet for various reasons, certain parts of our lives seem completely and intractably traditional. Our politics feel like a rehash of old battles, which were themselves replays of older battles. Going to the theater today probably feels little different than it did at any time in history. Can the product change?
In the contemporary culture, easily-accessible conduits for storytelling have led to what many call a “golden age” for television programming. “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” led to the shows you probably discuss at dinner parties; “What are you watching on Netflix?” makes for good conversation.
For the critic, live theater often feels outside this innovation process; after all, theater does not necessarily improve with more technology. Indeed, as we have become used to the 42-minute weekly episode of a television drama, many in the theater community still look back—way back—to ancient Greek theater and Shakespeare’s Elizabethan theater. Drama hasn’t changed; we have.
These thoughts struck me as I left the Guthrie’s production of “Disgraced,” written by Ayad Akhtar and directed by Marcela Lorca. “I’m so glad it was short,” said my wife, also a critic. At a taut 95 minutes with no intermission, it’s not so much that “Disgraced” was short, but that this production works with the way in which we experience a story instead of against it.
Imagine the best episode of your favorite dramatic television program—perhaps the series finale of something like “Breaking Bad.” Now imagine it performed by real people in front of you, without the limitations of your home entertainment center. Then imagine that the script comments on social issues—religion, identity, racial history, terrorism—so charged that people at a dinner party wouldn’t touch them with a bamboo pole. You may end up with something like “Disgraced.”
The scenario: a dark-skinned man and his white wife live in the Manhattan upper-middle class liberal milieu that might be the closest thing we have to a post-racial society. Why? For one, everyone seems wealthy, but also because class has finally moved past race as the determining factor for where people work and with whom people pair.
Even the would-be fascist Republican nominee himself gave lip service to the LGBTQ community. Yet, the lived experience of these progressive ideals requires active forgetfulness. We look “past” race while police violence seems to end up killing the same group of people, and the same old religious fundamentalist belief systems keep motivating people to commit terrorism here and abroad.
Something must be amiss; there must be some kind of explanation for why how we feel does not jive with the ideals we hold in polite society uphold. Tribalism rears its ugly head, in a newly nativist national political party, in the banlieue slums of France, and in the favelas we are soon to see in Rio for the Olympics.
“Disgraced” proposes that all these places have much in common—and those commonalities lead even to the polite society of the Upper East Side. Amir (Bhavesh Patel), we find, is a sort of Othello: married to a white woman and a useful mercenary at his corporate law firm but bound to be outside the in-group. He changed his surname from an Islamic name to an Indian one, you see, but the religious circuitry has not left. Emily (Caroline Kaplan) integrates Islamic tradition into her visual art, which goads her art curator friend Isaac (Kevin Isola) to say she fetishizes her own husband—she “orientalizes” him.
Amir is not at home in his own skin, nor is his younger cousin Abe/Hussein (Adit Dileep), who also has a penchant for name changes. Jory, Amir’s coworker and Isaac’s wife, lives the American black experience. It sounds like an off-color joke, a white lady, a black lady, a Jew, and two Pakistanis walk into an Upper East Side apartment, but it all comes together like a combination of “12 Angry Men,” “Othello,” and the show you could not help but binge-watch on your streaming service.
The set design (James Youmans) establishes the motif of stark contrasts, between the deluxe apartment and the dank subway that brings the New Yorkers together. The sound design (Scott W. Edwards) and musical compositions (Sanford Moore) reminded me of Hitchcock’s films with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, but I also recall a deep-bass thump that built suspense as the drama reached its climax.
It’s like the people on this production thought of everything—everything they could do on the stage to show these characters’ transformations in such a condensed performance. Costume design (Ana Kuzmanic) shows Amir move from exultant to laid-low. Lorca and dramaturg Carla Steen find the humor and darkness within the dialogue to tell the story of our surveilled society.
The most recent show I saw at the Guthrie made me think that other venues could match the Guthrie, despite its vastly greater resources. With “Disgraced,” a compelling script and seamless execution have me reconsidering. This production engaged with the contemporary dinner conversation that we do not want to have.
The artists on this production labored with grace, addressing the conversations we have internally but not with others. Dangers do face us, should our country and our world not resist the base forces of tribalism that have been reestablished as visibly commonplace. “Disgraced” is about where we are now, and this drama’s cathartic effect offers hope.
The play runs through Aug. 28. The Guthrie Theater is located at 818 S. 2nd St. For tickets: guthrietheater.org, 612-377-2224, toll-free at 1-877-44STAGE, or in person at the box office. Every performance from now on includes a post-show discussion. The schedule for ASL, audio described and open captioned performances can be found on the website.
Reach Adam M. Schenck at [email protected].
