Since the opening of Swine Palace’s 2015-16 theater season on Sept. 30, audiences have been gaining a new perspective on race, religion and personal identity — all in 90 minutes.
The Pulitzer-winning, Tony-nominated play “Disgraced” is the first play to grace Swine Palace’s stage this season. The play, written by Ayad Akhtar, concluded its Broadway run in March.
“Disgraced” centers on Muslim-American corporate lawyer Amir Kapoor, who is happily married, about to land a promotion and trying to dismiss his Muslim roots.
When he and his wife Emily hosted a dinner party in their New York apartment, a conversation among guests of different racial and ethnic backgrounds becomes much more, with each character learning more about themselves.
LSU theatre professor and “Disgraced” director Femi Euba said he brought the play to Swine Palace after hearing about it from a colleague. He read the play, thought it was relevant to the present time and proposed it to the chair and manager of Swine Palace.
“It speaks for so many things, like profiling, Islam, immigrants — whether exiled or self-exiled — and how difficult it is to make it in a big city like New York or a big country like America,” Euba said.
Euba is an immigrant himself, originally from Nigeria. He said the play is a reflection of the problems communities face assimilating to a new culture.
“In a supposedly multicultural society, where cultures should really try and collaborate with one another, that’s not always the case,” Euba said. “We should all try to look at each other’s cultures and try to make it work.”
Because of the heavy subject matter, Euba said it was important to have professional equity actors in the play instead of the usual practice of an entirely Master of Fine Arts student cast. Two actors from New York were hired, and Euba flew to the Big Apple to audition them.
Also hired was local professional actor and LSU alumnus Shawn Halliday, with whom Euba previously worked on another production.
Halliday said audiences have been floored by “Disgraced,” which he describes as a 90-minute rollercoaster ride.
“I talked to a patron afterwards on our opening night, and he said ‘I don’t know what to think yet,’” Halliday said. “There’s so much happening in this show that you just have to take time to decompress and go through it, which, to me, is what theatre is supposed to be.”
Halliday said he hopes the audience will think about the play after seeing it and talk about it with friends over coffee.
Halliday plays Isaac in “Disgraced,” who he describes as not the nicest of characters. However, Halliday said each character is relatable and has realistic traits that allow the audience to see versions of themselves onstage.
Cara Reid, who plays Emily, said the play also calls to attention the trials and tribulations of life as a Muslim-American.
Reid said characters who are people of color or Muslim are often portrayed stereotypically and one dimensionally, but “Disgraced” presents a whole new outlook many in the western world don’t get to see.
“Amir has a line in the play where he says this culture is in his bones,” Reid said. “It’s a completely different culture. It’s like apples and oranges, you can’t compare them because we don’t have that heritage.”
Reid said “Disgraced” should elicit strong reactions, but it’s hard to judge what that reaction will be because there are so many things that cause the audience to be uncomfortable without knowing why.
“It puts a mirror up to your face when it comes to racism and prejudices, and it’s a hard play to watch sometimes,” Reid said. “What I like about it is when talking about racism, it’s about everyone, and it really pinpoints different races and their struggles in life, and sometimes how easy they’ve had it.”
“Disgraced” closes on Oct. 11.

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Courtesy of Alice Wack Stout