Pamela Mala Sinha’s CRASH has arrived in Montreal, produced by Imago Theatre and directed by Krista Jackson. The Dora-winning solo play, which blends projections, myth, and dance, arose from Sinha’s experience of living with PTSD following a violent sexual assault in Montreal in the 1990s, and the grief of losing her father six years later. CRASH has since become a touchstone in Canadian theatre for how deeply personal stories can expand into shared catharsis. It now premieres in the city of its origins, with Ghazal Azarbad stepping into the role.
At the centre of CRASH is a nameless woman known as The Girl. She is a figure caught between past and present, voice and distance, in an experience whose non-linear leaps mirror the lasting effects of trauma. Set in Montreal, the play’s structure, which moves from third-person observation to fierce interiority, reflects the way memory itself breaks apart and re-forms under pressure — a form shaped by Sinha’s early struggle to find a theatrical language capable of holding the story, and by her initial insistence on performing the work herself.
For Azarbad, the appeal was immediate and profound. “Aside from the awesome team,” she says, “I was drawn to the intensity of The Girl’s journey.” As her words suggest, CRASH is not about what happens in an instant, but what persists and unfolds afterwards. Rather than relive the specifics of an event, Sinha chose to dramatize how trauma reshapes identity and relationships, using the third person to capture dissociation and the nonlinear form to reflect the unpredictable return of memory. Integrating text with the Hindu classical dance of Bharatanatyam as part of its storytelling language, the piece embodies memory, as much as it narrates it. This is the architecture at the heart of the story Azarbad now inhabits.
Azarbad is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian actor and creator, who was born in Mashhad and raised in Vancouver. A graduate of the UBC BFA Acting program and the Soulpepper Academy, she has performed across Canada with companies including Soulpepper, Bard on the Beach, Arts Club Theatre, and Belfry Theatre. On screen, her credits include the feature film Float and television appearances in Kim’s Convenience, Charmed, and The Slowest Show. She is also the writer-creator of Tārof: a Persian Comedy, Dear Konstantin, and REAL, and is a two-time Jessie Richardson Award nominee.
Taking on a challenge like CRASH requires care—both artistically and personally—and Azarbad speaks of her collaborators’ contributions warmly, in these terms: “The room is so supportive, and Krista leads with such strong intuition and heart that it makes navigating the emotional territory feel very held,” she explains. “We also communicate very openly as a group, so if self-preservation is needed, there’s a trust that we can just say it — truly a team effort of building and caring together.” And given that the work’s heavy emotional demands, Azarbad leans into embodied and relational practice, which fuses performance and self-care: “I’ve learned that movement helps shake it out of my body, and humour helps bring me back into the room.”
CRASH’s formal shifts from third-person narration to intimate confession are central to the way Azarbad experiences the material. “I enjoy the back-and-forth very much,” she notes. “Not only is it interesting story-telling, but it keeps me on my toes as an actor.” These shifts may sound distancing, but for her, they have become methods of engagement, which pull her “deeper into character, because you can really feel the twists and turns of The Girl’s journey. And the need to speak in the third person pulls me even deeper, because understanding the reasons behind the need to speak in the third person is what connects me to The Girl.”
Her connection to the material has also been shaped by early conversations with Sinha herself. “Pamela has been very open and generous with her story from the beginning,” Azarbad notes, recalling a two-day workshop in November, where context and history were shared before formal rehearsals began. “We’ve had conversations about culture, faith, family, love, and The Girl’s varying connection to them all.” And Montreal itself compounds the emotional resonance: “Performing the piece in the city it took place in makes it all the more real”.
And that sense of reality is key. CRASH engages with conversations around sexual violence and mental health not as topical signifiers, but as lived realities that outlast headlines and refuse quick closure. “Unfortunately, I think CRASH is timeless in subject matter because regardless of the cause, PTSD is something many will navigate in their life.” She expects audiences to leave not with neat answers, but with “the need to work through something.” CRASH is unlikely to “just leave their minds when they go home”: she anticipates the story will “stay with them as an unresolved injustice.”
As we conclude our dialogue, Azarbad is reflective about the impact of this role on her craft: “Every show makes you grow, but then there are shows that make you transform. CRASH is the latter,” she reflects. “Whether watching, reading, or performing — the piece is a transformative experience. I hope Montreal comes out to see what a gift Pamela has offered.”
Imago Theatre’s Montreal premiere of CRASH runs until February 22, 2026 at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts (Studio). Tickets, including Pay-What-You-Decide options, are available through imagotheatre.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
