“What creates the juiciest drama is when people’s pursuits are in direct conflict with one another. That clash, or collision, is what I go to the theatre to experience.”
Speaking to Director Christopher Manousos, it’s little wonder he was drawn to The Surrogate, the new Here For Now Theatre production presented in association with Crow’s Theatre, House and Body, and b current Performing Arts. In the play, written by UK-born, US-based lawyer, author, and LGBTQ+ advocate Mohsin Zaidi, that collision of conflicting objectives is no mere fender bender: it’s a high-speed, multi-vehicle pile-up.
Now onstage at Streetcar Crowsnest, The Surrogate unfolds over a single sleepless night in a hospital, as married couple Jake (Thom Nyhuus) and Sameer (Fuad Ahmed), who have spent years preparing for parenthood, await the birth of their child through surrogacy. When their surrogate, Marya (Serena Parmar), is admitted to hospital with complications that risk her life and the unborn baby’s, the situation escalates into a cascading series of urgent exchanges and high-stakes disputes. The rapidly evolving situation draws a labour-and-delivery nurse (Antonette Rudder),Marya’s college-age son, Qasim (Siddharth Sharma), and the couple and surrogate into a fraught, taut, multi-pronged negotiation about responsibility and care. At its root are competing ideas about family, autonomy, ethics and responsibility – which are amplified by shifting expectations, desires and loyalties, and complicated by the legalities of the surrogate contract itself.
For Manousos, the play’s emotional velocity was evident from the first reading held at Crow’s. “It was a riveting experience, full of shock, heart, and an ending that had the whole room ignited,” he recalls. “We burst into conversation the moment it was over, and I haven’t looked back.” While the play’s concerns are tangled, its engine is simple and powerful; “Urgency in life comes from circumstances where a person is pursuing their goals, their desired outcomes, to the utmost degree.’ In The Surrogate, everyone is “desperately trying to protect their family, which is a vulnerable act with no real end point.”
A graduate of the National Theatre School and now Associate Artistic Director at Crow’s Theatre, Manousos has built a reputation for visually attentive productions that draw audiences into carefully shaped environments. His recent acclaimed staging of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure explored immersive design elements, and The Surrogate extends that impulse by placing audience members on three sides of a hospital waiting room – complete with immediately recognizable teal linoleum floor, harsh fluorescent lights, and a constant murmur of audio messages to staff and visitors. The audience sits alongside Jake and Sameer, and around Marya’s hospital bed – literally thrust into the middle of the drama and held there – while the characters argue their passionate, deeply personal positions on surrogacy, parenthood, religion, fertility, abortion, sexuality, culture, health care, wealth, status, privilege and access.
Manousos’ strong direction leans into the immersive approach with a taut pacing that amplifies the play’s thematic density while eschewing neat answers. Working closely with a long-standing design team, he approached the staging with a blend of realism and theatrical stylization. “We’ve had countless storyboarding meetings where we plot out each scene and event of the play, asking ‘How can we go beyond the expected for a script rooted in realism?’” he notes. The result is akin to a television medical drama translated for the stage, with nods to filmic “jump cuts” and “cross-fades” supported by the stellar work of both lighting designer Chris Malkowski and sound designer Maddie Bautista.
The subject matter, of course, places the production squarely within current – and recently intensified – debates around reproductive rights and the economics of family-making. As Manousos notes, the legal landscape around surrogacy continues to shift. In Canada, paid surrogacy is illegal, meaning queer male couples often rely on someone who is willing to donate their body to carry a child. In the United States, paid arrangements are permitted (though not in the state of Louisiana, where the characters find themselves in the play), so the process becomes entangled with financial privilege. And here arises one of the collisions Manousos is most interested in: “When the very human act of giving birth becomes a business transaction, when a contract is in place,,what are the moral obligations to emotional autonomy?”
Zaidi’s script resists easy answers, and the ending’s final, skilfully directed moment is wide open to interpretation (it was a focus of active discussion during my car ride home after seeing the show). This is very much the point: what Manousos finds “most interesting” in The Surrogate is precisely that “the opposing ideas aren’t black and white. It isn’t a conversation with a clear right and wrong. It exists very much within a grey area.”
That said, as rehearsals progressed, he did find that one thematic thread continued to assert itself. “Love is at the root of every action in this play,” Manousos observes. “Defending the things we love — the people we love — is a radical act.” It’s also a simple and utterly comprehensible one.
“And it’s ultimately the driving force inside this searing, morally challenging drama about the journey to parenthood.”
The Surrogate runs to March 29, 2026 in the Studio Theatre at Streetcar Crowsnest. Tickets and additional information are available at crowstheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
