2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play at Berkeley Rep

This was brilliant and so relevant.  I cannot say more.  I was moved to tears.  The couple tried to hard, and the protagonist tried to achieve the Amercan dream, and went back to his "bones" when forced to...a lesson for all of us. Well enacted, tasteful and topical.

Amir Kapoor is living the American Dream—an upper East Side apartment, Italian suits, and the promise of becoming partner at the law firm. But when he and his wife Emily, an artist influenced by Islamic imagery, host a dinner party for their friends and colleagues, lies and deception threaten to shatter Amir’s carefully constructed life of cultural assimilation.

 Playwright Ayad Akhtar won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for this engrossing and combustible drama that probes the complexity of identity, the place of faith in today’s world, and the hidden prejudices still alive in liberal society

 Director Kimberly Senior comes to Berkeley Rep to stage the provocative play that she shepherded from Chicago to its triumphant run on Broadway.

• Velázquez’s Juan de Pareja, which Disgraced’s Emily reproduces as a portrait of her husband Amir, is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met’s online collection has details on the painting’s creation and exhibition history, as well as essays on the painting and related works.

The Reviews: 

"A continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world, with an accent on the incendiary topic of how radical Islam and the terrorism it inspires have affected the public discourse. In dialogue that bristles with wit and intelligence, Mr. Akhtar, a novelist and screenwriter, puts contemporary attitudes toward religion under a microscope, revealing how tenuous self-image can be for people born into one way of being who have embraced another…Everyone has been told that politics and religion are two subjects that should be off limits at social gatherings. But watching Mr. Akhtar’s characters rip into these forbidden topics, there’s no arguing that they make for ear-tickling good theater.”—New York Times

“The play remains a smart and provocative work of unusual daring, one that should be seen by anyone who cares about serious theater and the knotted tangles of tribal beliefs that lurk under civilized layers of educated, liberal professionals.”—Newsday

“A deftly crafted, theatrically compelling dissection of the intersection of sex, ethnicity and ambition…An unstinting and immediate drama…Plenty of plays feature protagonists who need to learn who they are and the importance of forefathers. This one features a guy who comes to see that one’s roots can be radioactive.”—Chicago Tribune

“Smart, spiky entertainment…A stimulating, sobering work from a distinctive new American playwright.”—Hollywood Reporter