While many know Zaiba Baig from the massively successful CBC series Sort Of, I’ve been waiting for the writer-performer’s return to theatre ever since seeing Acha Bacha at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2018. With that play, Baig crafted a familiar queer story that highlighted shared experience across cultures, while also grounding the narrative in rich cultural specificity.
I remember being struck by the bits of untranslated Urdu in Acha Bacha, and wondering how this might land for audiences without that cultural frame of reference. It was a first for me — to see my language and culture presented without translation or explanation — and this choice is emblematic of Baig’s instinct to resist audience expectations.
With The Begging Brown Bitch Plays, a double bill co-produced by House of Beida and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Baig returns with that same impulse, delivering two darkly funny and subversive works in conversation with each other.
The pairing is thematically intertwined rather than narratively continuous, with Baig leveraging direct address in both to implicate the audience in the act of observation.
The first, Kainchee Lagaa, begins in Lahore, Pakistan, following Billo, a trans sex worker; it also takes place in Etobicoke, where the focus is Arsalan, a young Pakistani-Canadian man. Their stories unfold separately, until they ultimately collide.
Billo, played with disarming charisma by Angel Glady, speaks accented English and welcomes the audience as “tourist friends,” offering glimpses into her daily life, while verbally reminding us that we are watching her. Rachel Forbes’ set, a modest room framed by gauzy curtains, intentionally reinforces this dynamic: we are peering in from both sides of the L-shaped seating configuration, and Billo is performing for us, taking turns engaging with each side.
Arsalan (Praneet Akilla), by contrast, is erratic and uncontained. Akilla imbues him with restless energy, laced with a simmering threat of violence and unpredictability. Director Tawiah Ben M’Carthy positions Arsalan on the upper walkway of the Buddies stage encircling Billo’s room, physically separating his storyline until his arrival in Pakistan brings him down to ground level. A third performer, Xina, cycles through a range of supporting roles, most memorably when they become Arsalan’s grandmother in a visually haunting sequence involving a pair of scissors.
Baig balances darker humour with lighter moments, like a recurring gag about Arsalan’s guitar-playing skills. And Dasha Plett’s sound design repeatedly introduces unease with music that feels unexpectedly sinister. Together, these elements, along with occasionally muddy narrative turns and opaque symbolism, create a jarring tonal dissonance that destabilizes the play’s sense of reality — for better or for worse.
Similar to Acha Bacha, Baig has textured the piece with specificity, including untranslated Urdu cultural references that are likely to land differently depending on who’s listening. Some of the terrain feels well-trodden (a longing for a place — or person — you barely know anymore) or evokes recognizable Pakistani imagery: tandoori chicken, the azaan (call to prayer), a rickshaw (gloriously decorated with motifs invoking South Asian truck art style). Other elements gave me pause and led me to wonder whether their inclusion deepens the story and adds nuance, or risks echoing familiar, perhaps reductive, representations.
During the intermission after Kainchee Laga, I found myself wondering: who is the audience for this play? It’s a question disproportionately — and somewhat unfairly — asked of BIPOC artists, especially when an audience may not be aware of cultural nuance or context.
Baig maybe anticipates this; after watching Jhooti, I reflected on Kainchee Laga with a different perspective and interpretation. After all, must stories and characters be palatable, or even based in truth?
I think part of Baig’s intent is to interrogate the way that audiences consume stories and characters. In Kainchee Laga, Billo asks the audience: “I share my body and heart with you. What more are you wanting to see?” It lands as both invitation and indictment, calling out the extractive gaze of audiences (and creators) who come to witness trans lives, and then leave.
This tension carries into Jhooti. It opens with a scream: protagonist Sakeena (played by Baig) enters the scene, frantically hiding behind a set of tall wooden poles , fleeing an unseen assailant who has threatened to chop her up (M’Carthy and Forbes repurpose the bones of Billo’s home to sparsely set the scene). It’s a clear connection to serial killer Bruce McArthur, who between 2010 and 2017 committed multiple murders within Toronto’s queer community.
Sakeena — like Billo — performs for us, but her performance is more exaggerated, speaking to the audience in a thick Pakistani accent and spontaneously bursting into dance to Bollywood tunes. Her deliberate sweetness serves as a vehicle for Baig’s social commentary.
As Sakeena reflects on her factory work, proud to have made the clothes worn by the audience, Baig pointedly critiques the exploitative labour systems that underpin global capitalism. Later, when Sakeena navigates life in Canada as a student, Baig satirizes with precision familiar racist assumptions surrounding newcomers and government support.
Partway through — and without getting into spoilers — Baig pulls the rug out from under the audience, reframing what we’ve been watching and who, exactly, is speaking.
The shift was both thrilling for me and disorienting, before it clicked into place and tied Jhooti back to Kainchee Lagaa in a way that felt inevitable in hindsight. I kept thinking back to Arsalan repeatedly asking, “Is any of this real?” and the question lingered in my mind as I considered both stories.
It’s in the second half of Jhooti that Baig’s performance is transcendent. She commands the stage, moving fluidly between humour and fury, bringing the audience through one emotional arc after another. As in her writing, her comedic timing as a performer is impeccable — she knows exactly when to break the tension, when to let her simmering anger rise to the surface, and how to end on an explosive note.
In a cultural landscape where trans rights face increasing hostility, and where dominant power structures demand that marginalized groups barter their stories for recognition and dignity, Baig is pushing back. Why, she seems to ask, must trans people be expected to offer up their truth in order to be granted empathy or opportunity?
With The Begging Brown Bitch Plays, Baig refuses to serve herself up for consumption. Instead she claims her own villain era, rejecting the pressure to be palatable, or even honest.
The Begging Brown Bitch Plays runs at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre until April 18. More information is available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Sania Hameed
Sania Hameed (she/her) fell in love with the performing arts over a decade ago, and has been committed to her passion for live theatre ever since. Fringe is her favourite time of the year. While she primarily spends her days working in post-secondary education and attending shows, she still finds time to hone her birding skills in anticipation of her second favourite time of the year (spring migration).
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