Borders in a Bedroom | The Play

The award-winning play, Borders in a Bedroom, is back on stage. After a sold-out run at Tamasha: A Festival for South Asian Performing Arts in the Fall of 2016, Borders, described as a play of “sharp humor, playfulness and crossfire points of view,” centers around a couple, Maya and Imran, and how deeply entrenched views about the complexities of the outside world can permeate even the most intimate of relationships. It compels the characters to address challenging socio-political issues pertaining to racial and religious disparities, philosophical differences, nationalism, and ultimately, love. Borders in a Bedroom demands from its protagonists a raw, visceral honesty about what they want and their feelings for each other.

As Maya, a British born Hindu woman, and Imran, an American born Muslim man, get ready for Maya’s birthday party in their New York apartment, with their relationship in full display, their preparations are interrupted by numerous BBC alerts. The BBC voice alerts provide updates on current affairs globally, including politics, macro and micro social problems, and terrorism. These alerts quickly pivot the conversations into socially taboo issues, with exchanges that reveal deep-seated biases and label associations which may be reconciled only through the tested bond of love. The course of the play leads to Imran and Maya questioning who they really are and who they wish to be be, and what kind of life they want from each other in the midst of a larger culture war taking shape across America and Europe today.