A brilliant fresh take on South Asian storytelling
I’ve been lucky enough to review for AYP for a few months now, and been lucky enough to see some fantastic theatre. Hunia Chawla’s Permission is far and away the best thing I have seen. Charting the relationship between two young Pakistani women Hanna and Minza (played by Anisa Butt and Rea Malhotra Mukhtyar) as they start university, Hanna goes to England, whilst Minza stays at home in Karachi. The show deals with radical politics, sexuality and female friendship whilst questioning tired old narratives about the oppressed Muslim woman.
Chawla is a wonderfully gifted writer. On the one hand she is able to be light and funny, and on the other able to write scenes so tense you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre. In an earlier conversation with AYP she said that the show was born out of a frustration with the way that we discuss women’s freedom and liberation. Permission is nuanced, it acknowledges the realities for Pakistani women in their home countries and those who go abroad. The show is political, it was philosophical, it was real – Hanna is only able to leave Pakistan because she has a great deal of economic freedom. Their relationship is complicated but they love each other, and it is that love that underpins the show. Permission neither demonised nor valorised, it just showed and that is what made it incredibly effective.
Neetu Singh’s direction is phenomenal. The actors are consistently engaging, funny and move in ways that are visually interesting. Tara Theatre is in thrust and the actors actually make use of the full space. The chemistry between Butt and Malhotra Mukhtyar is unbelievable, the latter’s multi-rolling was also excellent. The show couldn’t work if the two didn’t work so well together. They were fundamentally convincing, watching the show almost felt voyeuristic, like you were peering in on their lives. They were the only two on stage throughout the show, their physicality was phenomenal, they worked effectively with the voice tracks to create the impression of not being alone. Credit goes to the voice actors as well (Bhasker Patel, Asfandyar Khan and Lavan Jeyarupalingam) as their performances were wonderful, even without their physical presence.
Permission’s technical design is also revelatory. Amanda Ramaswamy (set and costume), Ali Hunter (lighting) and Pierre Flasse (sound) are all at the top of their game, elevating the relatively small stage space in Tara Theatre. It is hard to communicate in words how effective the design was, one almost forgot that it was there because of how immersive it made the world of Hanna and Minza.
Permission is the exact sort of story we need, it is nuanced, empathetic, fantastically executed, funny and sharp. It is a story that is unapologetically South Asian without verging into tropes or stereotype. It is rare to see something so fresh. Everyone who likes theatre should watch this show, and if there is any justice in the world Chawla, Singh, Butt and Malhotra Mukhtyar will be household names in the next decade.