Disgraced at Lyceum Theatre

The New York Times - Highly Recommended

"..."Bon appetit!" The festive phrase announcing the start of a meal sounds more like a bell signaling another round in a prizefight when it is chirped by Gretchen Mol, playing a hostess whose dinner party has become a verbal jousting tournament in Ayad Akhtar's terrific, turbulent drama Disgraced. By this point in the play, which opened at the Lyceum Theater on Thursday night, the nerves of everyone settling down to eat have been scraped raw. It's hard to concentrate on your fennel and anchovy salad when the conversation over cocktails has descended into a fierce debate about the rise of Islamic terrorism and the basic tenets or the meaning of the Quran."

Entertainment Weekly - Recommended

"...Ayad Akhtar's topical play Disgraced, the worthy winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for drama, continues a long tradition of theater that explores the costs of assimilation for minority groups in the great American melting pot. In this case, we get an engaging snapshot of the challenge for upwardly mobile Muslim Americans in the post-9/11 age. At the show's center is Amir Kapoor (Hari Dhillon), a Pakistani-American mergers & acquisitions lawyer living on Manhattan's Upper East Side with his blonde wife, Emily (Boardwalk Empire's Gretchen Mol).

NBC New York - Highly Recommended

"...There's a lot to unpack in "Disgraced," and with only one act clocking in at less than 90 minutes, you'll walk out wanting to continue the debate with those around you. These are complex ideas. Self-identity and race. Tolerance and pride. How terrorism has affected public prejudice towards Islamics. Just be careful not to get too personal. Because as we've learned, such discussions don't always end well."

Time Out New York - Highly Recommended

"...In truth, this is a superior production to the one that opened at Lincoln Center in 2012, with a more charismatic cast and a better sense of the rising ideological stakes. In the lead role of proudly assimilated lawyer Amir Kapoor, Hari Dhillon cuts a handsome, graceful figure (different to the simmering suavity of original Amir, Aasif Mandvi). He has an easy chemistry with his pretty wife, Emily (Gretchen Mol), an artist whose recent work is influenced by Islamic ornamentation."