there is no Grand statement in disgrace what there is is a series of contradictions and those contradictions are the experience that I want the audience to be confronted with [Music] [Music] Amir is a corporate attorney of basani origin who's been hiding his basani and Muslim Heritage from his mostly Jewish bosses at work passing himself off as Indian the play basically charts his undoing as that information comes out I've often spoken about what I think is the one of the central axes of American Experience which is rupture from the old world and renewal of the self in the new world and that's seven eight Generations in Americans are still recapitulating this movement where they rupture from one coast and begin life on a new Coast or rupture from a primary family and recreate themselves in a surrogate family a surrogate identity this notion of rupture and renewal is Central to being American we celebrate the renewal we do not mourn the rupture and disgraced in many ways is about the gap that is Created from not mourning the rupture because here's a character who cannot celebrate renewal and is caught in this process of rupture I obviously don't have an answer to that very pregnant question is there something different about growing up Muslim I think that's what the play is looking into what I want is to offer them a rich absorbing experience I want them to lose themselves in the experience of watching the work once the work is over hopefully they have been transported and in being transported have wrestled with not intellectually but in their experience in the body of their experience they have been confronted with and wrestled with contradictions and oppositions that continue to create conflict once they leave [Music]