Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s new drama explores the role of women in Islam

The Who & The What has opened in Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater. Under crisp direction by Kimberly Senior, Ayad Akhtar’s vibrant culture-clash drama simmers with dry humour.

From left, Bernard White, Tala Ashe and Nadine Malouf in a scene from The Who & The What. Erin Baiano / Lincoln Center Theater / AP Photo

Thorny disputes can erupt when traditional religious beliefs are publicly questioned. Ayad Akhtar, the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Disgraced, has written a strong, colourful new play, being staged in New York City, that takes on fundamentalist reactions to questions about the role of women in Islam.
Akhtar's The Who & The What has opened in Lincoln Center's Claire Tow Theater. Under crisp direction by Kimberly Senior, Akhtar's vibrant culture-clash drama simmers with dry humour.
A close Pakistani-American family living in Atlanta is headed by a traditional Muslim father, the benevolent tyrant and widower Afzal (in an intense, often wryly comical performance by Bernard White). His two adult Americanised daughters practise their Islamic culture but are influenced by western concepts, temptations and doubts.
Tension is created by the older daughter, scholarly and stubborn Zarina (Nadine Malouf), whose first romance was crushed by Afzal. Now she focuses on her writing – a novelised examination about women and Islam through an imagined inner life of the Prophet Mohammed. Portrayed with firm conviction by Malouf, Zarina struggles to apply her educated, feminist views to traditional stories about the Prophet that continue to shape the lives of modern Muslim women.
White happily sinks his teeth into the overbearing character of Afzal, who begs Zarina to go on dates. Like Afzal, the impatient younger sister Mahwish (sweetly portrayed by Tala Ashe) wants Zarina to find happiness by getting married and having children, so she can do the same.
To appease them, Zarina goes on a date with Eli (Greg Keller), a white American convert to Islam, whose outsider perspective on traditional Islam adds another layer of complexity to the drama. Eli, a studious man, understands Zarina's questioning search for the truth about the Prophet, but doesn't realise how far she's taking it.
Malouf gives a lovely portrayal of an outspoken, smart woman intensely determined to follow her own beliefs. But when Zarina's manuscript is completed, it ignites a conflict within the family that quickly threatens to go nuclear. In a particularly incendiary and well-directed scene in the second act, Afzal fiercely decries the book as a betrayal of Islam and of him. Even Eli is alarmed at the prospect of retaliation from within their Muslim community.
The beautiful, carved wooden backdrop by Jack Magaw lends a timeless, Middle Eastern air to the contrasting views clashing onstage. While the ending seems a bit contrived, Akhtar's characters and dialogue are convincingly real and his play is a thoughtful examination of how one family's conflict mirrors larger societal issues.
Meanwhile, Disgraced is about to get a high-profile staging on Broadway next autumn, although exact dates and cast information have not yet been announced. Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire) and Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) are among the cast who will perform in the production, which tells the story of a successful Muslim-American lawyer and his artist wife who have their relationship and beliefs about race and identity shattered when a co-worker and her husband come to dinner.
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