Theatre 2026: The Surrogate @ Crow's Theatre

As its name alludes to, The Surrogate is a fascinating play about surrogacy that is layered with thought-provoking legal and ethical issues spanning politics, religion, race, sexual orientation, identity, class, wealth, privilege, lack of universal healthcare, bodily-autonomy, female agency, and more.

Sameer and Jake are a gay married couple from Manhattan who entered into a surrogacy contract with Marya, a Muslim woman from Houston, Texas. Problems ensue when Marya, who is 28 weeks into her pregnancy, becomes seriously ill while visiting her son at college in Louisiana. While commercial surrogacy is legally binding in states like California and accepted with conditions in most other states including New York State and Texas, it is prohibited and not considered legal in Louisiana.

Sameer is an aggressive lawyer who understands the danger in the situation. He races to Marya’s hospital to try to have her transported back to Houston. Were she to give birth while in Louisiana, their contract would be deemed invalid and Marya would be considered the mother of the baby, despite having no genetic connection to the child.  He spars with an antagonistic and homophobic nurse named Christina, who blocks Sameer against taking any action that could endanger her patient.

Jake is an aspiring writer who hopes to write about their surrogacy experience but is thus far financially dependent upon Sameer. You can see the inequality in their power dynamic even in the way they are dressed.  Sameer is in a suit and tie while Jake wears a casual shirt and slacks. Jake arrives at the hospital and tries to be the calming voice of reason, but soon arguments erupt as secrets emerge from all sides.

Playwright Mohsin Zaidi was born in Britian to Pakistani parents, raised as a Muslim and Oxford-educated as a barrister, who then moved to New York to practice law before giving it up to focus on writing.  His award-winning debut book “A Dutiful Boy” published in 2020 was his memoir on growing up gay in a Muslim family.  Many of his own attributes and experiences seem to be imbued into the play and especially in the character of Sameer.

In Sameer, Zaidi created a complex character who struggles with the dichotomy between his Muslim upbringing and his identity as a gay man who craves acceptance from his disapproving mother, both of his lifestyle choices and of his white husband Jake who she refuses to acknowledge. Sameer is also portrayed as a Canadian expat which accentuates the differences in the healthcare systems between the two countries.

Once again, the staging at a Crow’s Theatre is fantastic, set as a thrust stage with audience on three sides in the intimate Studio Theatre.  A hospital bed with a monitor and chair are placed at the far end of the stage backed by a large mirror that highlights Marya when she is lying on the bed so that she can be seen by all the audience regardless of their seating locations. Long fluorescent-like “hospital” lighting hangs above the length of the stage. They start off emitting that typical yellowish hue found in older medical facilities but change to bright red and blue colours during dramatic moments and occasionally momentarily fade to black. Sound design was experienced before the play even started with the occasional voice heard from an intercom calling “Transport requested to ICU” or “Code Blue ICU”.

While the focus was often directed at the hospital bed where Marya lay for most of the play, there were also heated conversations happening between the other characters who paced along the long empty space in the centre of the stage floor.  A chair in the first row on either side of the stage was deliberately kept empty, where Sameer and/or Jake would sit during certain scenes. We paid for “Tier A” seating facing the front of the stage, so we had the best vantage point of all the action. Although we were farthest from the bed, the reflection in the mirror allowed us to clearly see what was happening there while the scenes away from the bed occurred directly in front of us and we had a good view of the characters when they sat in the chairs.  The viewpoint was not always as good for the people on either side of the stage since they were often looking at least one character’s back.

This play was exhilarating to watch and spurred lengthy discussions afterwards. For me, that is always the sign of an impactful and memorable show.  Hearing about the issues with American healthcare and how illness was the leading cause of bankruptcy made me so grateful to be Canadian. This production of The Surrogate is a world premiere so we, as Canadians, saw it first. Given that compensated surrogacy is viewed so differently in each American State, and that it is illegal in Canada just like in Louisiana, it will be interesting how this play is received in each jurisdiction.

So far, other than Rogers v. Rogers, this has been my favourite play of the 2025/26 Crow’s Theatre season.