{"id":122612,"date":"2026-03-16T10:48:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=122612"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T18:00:01","slug":"scrutiny-love-and-immigration-converge-in-nautanki-bazaars-an-imm-permanent-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2026\/03\/16\/scrutiny-love-and-immigration-converge-in-nautanki-bazaars-an-imm-permanent-resident\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Love and Immigration Converge In Nautanki Bazaar\u2019s An IMM-Permanent Resident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Playwrights
Playwrights and performers Himanshu Sitlani (L) and Neha Poduval (R) (Photo courtesy of the artists)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nautanki Bazaar in association with Factory Theatre: An IMM-Permanent Resident. Written and performed by Neha Poduval and Himanshu Sitlani; directed by Miquelin Rodriguez. Studio Theatre at Factory Theatre, Toronto. Continues until March 22, 2026; tickets here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

What is undeniable is that An IMM-Permanent Resident \u2014 written and performed by Neha Poduval<\/strong> and Himanshu Sitlani<\/strong> and directed by Miquelon Rodriguez<\/strong> \u2014 has a pure heart.<\/p>\n

The opening scene immediately illustrates the comical dynamic of the couple, and the form of the play. Neha tries to mediate but, along with pop-up ads, Himashu interrupts her flow, storming in singing, and asks her to pause so they can fill out the lengthy forms for her permanent residency.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s visibly angry, they lose their sweet connection, but he steps up to calm her down; assuaging her anger, allaying her doubts and providing her hope to return on their journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether,\u201d he yearningly asks, holding his hand out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways,\u201d she, now reassured, resolutely responds, grabbing hold of it.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo of Himanshu Sitlani and Neha Poduval in IMM-Permanent Resident (Photo: Dahila Katz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Play<\/h3>\n

Based on their own lives, and developed over ten years through various, the play recreates their experience of their immigration to Canada and narrates their interpretations of it to the audience.<\/p>\n

Like Neha, the predictable plot is interrupted by flights of their imagination, featuring homages to genres ranging from westerns to romantic comedies, which make for an entertaining journey that gradually becomes more serious as the rejected applications pile up and their will wavers.<\/p>\n

Throughout the show\u2019s 80 minutes, Himanshu\u2019s performance of heartfelt innocence and Neha\u2019s palpable frustration, both of which are intentionally pitched to a Bollywood melodrama, moved the audience to chuckles and awes, since their combined charisma is hard to resist falling for.<\/p>\n

Both aspiring theatre artists, they fall in love in Mumbai, which Neha considers home, but where Hemanshu does not see a future for himself. Then they struggle to adjust to Toronto as newlyweds \u2014 one whose residential status is secured, the other in bureaucratic limbo.<\/p>\n

As with the \u201cIMM\u201d in its title \u2014 which is the code used on the forms for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada \u2014 the play seeks to represent the psychological effect of the language that surrounds the immigration process and to make us feel the extent of its intrusiveness.<\/p>\n

Audience Interaction<\/h3>\n

In scenes where they ask the audience the questions, Tushar Tukaram Dalvi<\/strong>\u2019s lighting design switches from the golden warmth of a home to the set of a stress-inducing reality show, which is amplified by the score, featuring cues from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Wheel of Fortune.<\/p>\n

One by one the questions, which range from names and dates to the number of condoms used on their honeymoon, start to take their toll, and their point is made. But, as the play progresses and these scenes recur, that point goes undeveloped; we only see and feel its sheer ridiculousness.<\/p>\n

A more compelling digression centers on the acronym \u201cP.R.,\u201d which, at Himanshu\u2019s insistence, the audience chants with him until it sounds like the Hindi word for love: pyaar. For Neha, though, it means waiting, uncertainty and precarity.<\/p>\n

Between those two ends, we\u2019re shuffled.<\/p>\n

Highlights<\/h3>\n

The play is the strongest when it depicts the strain the immigration process places on the relationship and staging of Neha\u2019s explosive anger, which is expressed in thrown documents and a heart-shaped cake (set design by Jung-Hye Kim<\/strong>, whose work is always subtle and thoughtful).<\/p>\n

In a notable tiff, the amiable couple argue in Hindi, which goes untranslated, so the audience members who cannot comprehend the content can focus on the universal emotions instead. They urge us to see how the strife of their circumstances resonates beyond the limits of language.<\/p>\n

Playing It For Laughs<\/h3>\n

The musician Drake, whose 2016 single \u201cHotline Bling\u201d gave Neha a way into conceiving of what Toronto was like, is a prominent reference here, though, with his waning reputation in recent years, this dates the material, which also liberally uses \u201cfuck\u201d for emphasis, features gags that poke fun at unstable networks on video calls, and earnestly perpetuates immigrant tropes.<\/p>\n

It is consistent with the play, then, to represent archetypes and stereotypes but never develop it deeply, neither subverting, transforming or commenting on it, playing it for laughs or shock factor rather than as opportunities for analysis.<\/p>\n

Their privilege as an able-bodied, middle class, heterosexual couple in the system goes unrecognized, and stories from other immigrants fail to appear, since they seem to exist in an insular world populated only by family and official workers.<\/p>\n

As performers, they have done the work to step outside of their own story, but, as dramatists, they haven\u2019t stepped outside of themselves to scratch beyond on the surface of their material.<\/p>\n

They remember, learn, think, but never reflect or critically engage, eroding the play\u2019s potential stakes along the way to its cliff-hanger ending.<\/p>\n

Staging<\/h3>\n

Produced by Nautanki Bazaar in association with Factory Theatre, the play is presented at the Studio Theatre, which has risers on two sides of the room with the stage in the centre. Oftentimes the couple would address one side of the audience before making their way to the other side.<\/p>\n

For the most part, this was not an issue, but, towards the end, Rodrigeuz\u2019s decision to stage two critical scenes a certain way baffled me. The first, for their proposal on Juhu Beach, is staged against a wall, with the couple looking directly at each other, their faces obscured from all.<\/p>\n

It happens again, when, in the final moments, after Neha receives an email and they sit side by side on a suitcase, their faces bathed in the blue light as they look at each other before looking ahead towards the future of their fate. Since their backs were facing me, I could not see them or feel its impact, meaning that this critical moment where the performer\u2019s countenance communicated a complex confluence of uncertainty and hope, could unfortunately not be received by half the audience.<\/p>\n

For the proposal, if they rotated in circles, both sides of the coin spun would be visible. In the final scene, if their backs were against the wall, or they weren\u2019t facing each other, the perspective would be democratic and that poignant note could\u2019ve been beneficially achieved in all of us.<\/p>\n

This obstruction left me unable to appreciate the dedication poured into that earned moment.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n

Like the application adviser tells Himanshu about filling the forms, \u201cIt\u2019s not what you put, it\u2019s how you put it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a sense, there were, and are, other ways this play could\u2019ve been better put.<\/p>\n

By Nirris Nagendrarajah<\/a> for Ludwig-Van.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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An IMM-Permanent Resident \u2014 written and performed by Neha Poduval and Himanshu Sitlani and directed by Miquelon Rodriguez \u2014 has a pure heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42533,52,62,63],"tags":[13854,1229,40030,40029],"yst_prominent_words":[20854],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/03\/Copy-of-REVIEW-2026-03-16T103252.582.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-vTC","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122612"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122623,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122612\/revisions\/122623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122612"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=122612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}