Tag: Nigel Whitmey

Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, Bush Theatre, 18 May 2013

We thought this was a very interesting and engrossing night at the theatre.

Ayad Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize for drama with this visceral play about a Muslim corporate lawyer, Amir, in New York, whose life unravels during a dinner party.

Amir is a Westernised Muslim, who admits to feeling anti-Israel, on largely “tribal” grounds. But is Amir’s position anti-Semitic and is this issue the cause of his corporate undoing and more?

Here is a link to the Bush resource on this play.

Writing this up in March 2018, I am reminded of the play we saw last week, Checkpoint Chana – click here or below:

Checkpoint Chana by Jeff Page, Finborough Theatre, 11 March 2018

Although Disgraced (like Checkpoint Chana) rather unrealistically rushes the central character’s disintegration, it emerges from a far more subtle and interesting debate. It is also a far better piece of drama.

Excellent cast and production for Disgraced at the Bush too.

Below is the trailer vid…

…follwed by an interview with the author:

This search term – click here – finds the reviews (mostly very good) from the Bush production.

Demons & Dybbuks by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Method & Madness At The Young Vic, 18 September 1999

The log reminds me that we ran into Rob Pay, Susan Pay & Jay Jaffe at that show. In those days, Rob & Susan lived very near to my place, but my place was a building site that autumn and I was staying with Janie in Ealing at that time.

As for the play, I recall that Mike Alfred’s Method & Madness project was a bit Complicité-like, without quite the oomph (and certainly not the longevity) of Complicité.

The piece was basically adaptations (by Mike Alfreds) of a few Isaac Basevis Singer short stories.

Nick Curtis in The Standard was not very impressed:

Dybbuks Standard CurtisDybbuks Standard Curtis 02 Sep 1999, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Paul Taylor was more charitable in The Independent:

Dybbuks Independent TaylorDybbuks Independent Taylor 02 Sep 1999, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The diary suggests that it was a long/late-finishing show, so I suspect that we picked up shawarmas after this show on the way home. The diary also tells me that we went to Gary [Davison]’s birthday lunch the next day. The diary is silent on where we went but in those days Gary tended to hold that event at Lemonia in Primrose Hill.