The baby-making begins in the first minutes of Samsara, the Lauren Yee play running through Feb. 9 at Profile Theatre. The production is “a vibrant and witty confrontation with modern day colonialism,” a narrow needle eye to thread, but Profile pulls it off thanks to a whip-smart script and strong performances across the cast.
Katie (Jerilyn Armstrong) and Craig (Benjamin Tissell) are a young married couple trying to start a family, and try they do at center stage in many, many positions. The squeamish or shy need not worry, though: The characters keep almost all of their clothes on and the couplings are played to comedic effect with Katie throwing negative pregnancy tests across the stage in frustration when their efforts are for naught.
Further testing reveals that Katie will not be able to carry a baby on her own, and so begins the white couple’s quest to hire a surrogate in India. Samsara highlights the race and class issues that arise, made even more uncomfortable because the couple is so ignorant. Once in India, Craig is afraid to cross the street because it’s so crowded, and once he does, it’s just to grab McDonald’s. In a dream sequence, Katie frets that the baby will have brown skin: “It’s a formative time,” Dream Craig says of the womb. “You’re in a place and it changes you.”
There are no weak links in the cast of five actors, though Abrar Haque is a standout in his role as Amit, the baby. On its face, starring as a fetus doesn’t seem like a role that would offer much. But with her many touches of magical realism, playwright Yee allows Amit’s surrogate Suraiya (Veda Baldota) to have a complex relationship with Amit—they annoy each other, depend on each other, and eventually love each other. Extra points for the physical comedy when Amit kicks and punches her from in the womb.
My only quibble is that the play could have ended five or 10 minutes earlier. It felt like it was searching for an ending and landed on something a little too tidy. But Samsara is one of Yee’s early works, first produced in 2015. Since then, Yee has become a widely produced and award-winning playwright and a sought-after writer in both theater and TV, according to Profile. Portlanders may recall her autobiographical play about her father, King of the Yees, which Profile put on in 2023, or Portland Center Stage’s production of The Great Leap in 2022.
Profile will produce Yee’s newest work Mother Russia, which Yee is still actively writing, to close out its spring season in June. Based on the strength of Samsara, it’s worth putting on your calendar now.
SEE IT: Samsara by Profile Theatre, onstage at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St. 503-242-0080, profiletheatre.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 6–9. $45+, with discounts on affinity nights and for the Arts for All program.