Disgraced: A Case of ‘What If…’ That Transcends Its Premise

What if we were to set up a playwriting competition – a contrived situation that brings together four disparate characters, and then let ‘er rip! 

Let’s see…  Make one of them a Muslim man, one of them a Jewish man, the third a white woman, and the fourth an African American woman. Make them all intelligent and financially comfy (two lawyers, two in the art world). Plunk them down in a picture perfect Upper East Side apartment.  Stir and let ferment. 

If you are lucky enough to have Ayad Akhtar take you up on your proposition, and once he pushes past the manipulative set-up, you will discover you have one terrific play on your hands, something called Disgraced. It comes loaded with razor sharp dialog, solid acting, excellent directing, and a great set.  Broadway here we come!  Pulitzer Prize here we come!!! 

Actually, the Pulitzer Prize came last year, and Broadway is here right now, with tonight’s opening at the Lyceum Theatre after the play's previously successful Off Broadway mounting last season.

Disgraced unfolds on a world that is a decade past 9/11 and well into the age of the seemingly endless war on terrorism, jihadist extremism, and generalized Islamophobia. 

Amir Kapoor (Hari Dhillon) is a successful attorney, expecting to be named partner in his law firm. A Pakistani Muslim who has found it convenient to be perceived as Indian, he considers himself to be fully assimilated. He has little patience for those who give Islam a bad name by attempting to impose a way of life he says reflects beliefs and values and living conditions from 1,500 years ago.

Amir is married to Emily (Gretchen Mol), a white woman and an artist who is about to have a breakthrough exhibit of her work that was inspired by Islamic artistic traditions. Curating the art show is Isaac (Josh Radnor), the Jewish boyfriend of Jory (Karen Pittman), an African American woman, also an attorney and a colleague in the same law firm where Amir works. 

The four come together for a celebratory dinner at Amir and Emily’s lovely apartment (elegantly designed by John Lee Beatty), where friendly conversation quickly segues to friendly debate, and then to not-so-friendly arguing that threatens to turn into open warfare. Suffice it to say, and without giving away the specifics, many lines are crossed during and after the dinner party, and it remains very uncertain as to what the future will hold for any of them. 

Every good fight needs a spark or two to ignite it, and the playwright has obliged with three instigating elements. The first comes in the form of Amir’s nephew Abe (Danny Ashok), “Abe” being another identity-concealing name chosen to ease assimilation. Abe (or, as his uncle calls him, Hussein) wants Amir to come out in support of a local imam who has been charged with abetting terrorism. Another spark is lit by the suspiciously non-professional relationship between Isaac and Emily. And a third has to do with Amir’s situation at work, which also involves Jory. Knots within knots within knots. 

There is so much manipulation of the situations (did I mention that Emily is serving pork for dinner?) that you would not expect this play to work. Yet somehow it does. Ayad Akhtar is able to humanize the characters so that the dialog feels honest and true, and Kimberly Senior’s fast-paced direction (the play runs 90 minutes without an intermission) and solid performances by the tight-knit cast make for an intensely thrilling theatrical experience. 

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‘Mothers and Sons’: What Does Katharine Want?

Cast of 'Mothers and Sons' 

No one can top actress Tyne Daly at portraying complicated women who are tough and sometimes overbearing in the face they display to the world, while being internally vulnerable and secretive.  Her Tony Award-winning take on Mama Rose in Gypsy, her layered turn as Maria Callas in Master Class, and even her four-time Emmy-winning role as Detective Mary Beth Lacy in the long-running television series Cagney and Lacey have all borne the unique Daly stamp. 

So if anyone could mine the character of Katharine Gerard, the “Mother” in Terrence McNally’s new play Mothers and Sons opening tonight at the Golden Theatre, it would be Ms. Daly. The problem is, Katharine is such a mass of radioactive toxicity that Daly might just as well be asked to play, and find redemption in, the recently deceased and deservedly despised pastor-of-hate Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps. 

Katharine is the mother of Andre, who died 19 years previously of complications arising from AIDS. She has shown up, unannounced and unbidden, on the doorstep of Andre’s long-time lover Cal (Frederick Weller), Cal’s husband Will (Bobby Steggert), and their son Bud (Grayson Taylor). This is not a visit of attempted reconciliation, however; indeed the purpose for Katharine’s appearance is never made clear, possibly not even to herself.   

All we know at curtain’s rise is that she is there, standing downstage center in Cal and Will’s lovely New York apartment (nicely rendered by John Lee Beatty), dressed in a floor-length fur coat, resisting Cal’s polite entreaties to remove it and sit because she has no intention of staying (though, of course, she does stay, and even occasionally sits).

What does Katharine want? That becomes the central question of the play. She makes it clear that she offers no acceptance or approval of Andre or Cal (“I don’t have to approve,” she says most emphatically, as if there were any doubt) or later, when she meets him, of Will. The only one she takes to is young Bud, who is innocently accepting of her as a potential Grandma to fill the absence of one in his life. 

Ostensibly, the visit is sparked by Katharine’s wish to return Andre’s diary to Cal (she couldn’t mail it?). She hasn’t read it, and has no interest in doing so. Neither, as it happens, does Cal, whom she last saw at Andre’s memorial service (“a little too gay for my taste,” she says). It just seems that Katharine’s days are marked with bitterness and resentment, and now that her husband has also passed away, she cannot abide her life but can only lash out like a cornered she-bear.

And so it goes. Cal and Will each take turns with Katharine, alternately trying out polite small talk and taking the opportunity to apprise her (and the audience) of the roller coaster ride that has marked the last two decades for gays—from ostracized bearers of a deadly virus to marriage equality. Both Mr. Weller and Mr. Steggert do splendidly in roles that really serve as foils to Katharine’s mostly vitriolic comments (“He wasn’t gay when he left Dallas,” she says of Andre, eyeing Cal most accusingly).

It would seem that Mr. McNally (who also penned Master Class, though Ms. Daly’s participation in it came later, with the most recent Broadway revival) had a lot on his mind that he wanted to address with this play. He wrote an earlier incarnation titled Andre’s Mother back in 1988, a short work that took place at Andre’s memorial service in Central Park.  The playwright has also spoken of his rocky relationship with his own mother, proud of his accomplishments but none too happy with his sexual orientation.    

There is, then, authentic motivation behind Mothers and Sons. As a play, however, it is unfortunately clunky.  Emotionally charged speeches, which abound, are not enough to raise the work above that of a polemic. Cal exists as representative of the link between past and present. The younger Will exists as representative of a new generation of gay men who grew up with a greater sense of self-respect and acceptance, so that they expect it rather than appreciate it when it kindly shows up. 

Bud serves three purposes. One purpose, of course, is to let us know that married gay couples with children are becoming an established feature of the landscape. A second purpose is that of a theatrical device to allow Cal and Will to take turns with Katharine, as one or the other leaves the room to help their son with his bath or to get him changed for bed.

The third purpose, and the most manipulative one, is to tug at Katharine’s (and the audience’s) heartstrings, so that at the very end we are expected to find a glimmer of hope in an Oreo cookie she accepts from the lad. (I will say, I suspiciously eyed an untrimmed Christmas tree in the corner, fearing an outbreak of caroling would ensue).

If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is that playwrights—no matter how established and successful they have been—need someone to read their work through a clinical and unemotional lens and consider its impact and potential for presentation to an audience that is not necessarily as personally invested in the message. Whether director Sheryl Kaller had that role is unknown to me. 

In this case, the message is significant enough to warrant additional work on the play, and the quality of the acting—first-rate all around—makes it worth the visit. But I can’t help thinking of the stunning 2011 revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, which so successfully married message with theatrical verisimilitude. It can be done. 

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