#Play Ayad Aktar Pulitzer Prize 2013 Drama

• Playwright:  Ayad Akhtar (1970)
  
• Title: Disgraced
  
• Genre: play (1 act; 4 scenes)
  
• Opening night: January 2012
  
• Trivia: Nominated  Tony Award for Best Play 2015
  
• Trivia:  Winner Pulitzer Prize Drama 2013
• Monthly reading plan
• #ReadDiversely 2021

 

Quickscan:

Quote from The Economist:

• Akhtar’s tales of assimilation
• “are as essential today as the work of
• Saul Bellow, James Farrell, and Vladimir Nabokov
• were in the 20th century
• …in capturing the drama of the immigrant experience.“

 

1. Well, this gives you an idea where Ayad Aktar stands compared
2. to the great writers of the 20th C!
3. A Pulitzer Prize winning play
4. …always needs to be researched before reading.
5. I discovered so much that otherwise would have passed me by

 

1. Character development: fury –> rage –> violence  (Amir, Isaac)
2. Characters represent different parts of society:
3. Amir:  Pakistani muslim lawyer; apostate, abandons Islam
4. Isaac: Jewish  museum curator; defends Judaism, Israel
5. Emily: American privileged artist (wife Amir); fervently embraces Islamic art
6. Abe: Pakistani muslim (nephew Amir); zealot;  uncompromising belief in Islam
7. Jory: African-American lawyer (wife Isaac) objects to misogynistic Islam
8. Plot: Volatile combination of characters at dinner party
9. …that needs just a spark to explode (read play and discover spark!)
10. Timeline: opening scene, 2 weeks later (SC2), 3 months later (SC3), 6 months later (SC 4)
11. Location: Amir and Emily’s apartment, East Side New York City
12. Spin-in-the-web:  Islamic faith, it connects all the actors
13. Themes: Islamophobia  – racism – tribalism

 

Strong point:  literary device dramatic irony

1. Aktar arranges the dialogue and exit/entrances of characters 
2. so  the audience knows more
3. …than the character they are watching on stage!
4. #Classic way to create tension and suspense

 

Strong point:  title  “Disgraced”

1. The title “Disgraced” is the core message of the play.
2. What it feels like….and what people do as reaction.
3. Amir learn about 3 shocks in his life:
4. back round check at law-firm, wife’s affair,
5. …NO promotion as full partner at work
6. He feels “disgraced”.
7. What happens?
8. Amir reacts with “kick-the-dog effect.”
9. Anger and frustration leads him to lash out at innocent people….

 

Conclusion:

1. I’m trying to read 50 Best Plays of the last 100 years.
2. But there are many plays in the 21st C that are not on this list.
3. I expect Disgraced to be one on the best of the 2000s
4. I don’t see many “plays” on reading lists.
5. Try to think of a play as a “surgically crafted” novella
6. …extremely accurate and precise.