Genuine and Stable refers to the deemed status of a couple’s relationship through the judgement of immigration officers assessing the government lead criteria for those seeking partner visas in New Zealand.
Proudly Asian Theatre Company. Director: Marianne Infante
Naturally, paperwork can misrepresent reality just as easily as it can reflect it, yet interpreting it and determining the future of a stranger is another’s day job.
In this case it is the excess case load left on the desks of two agents during another’s leave. An afterthought triggering a journey for our two unsuspecting leads where legislation guides their minds with varying degrees of circumspection and assumption into some kind of understanding of the relationship hiding behind the application.
For them, this job is then checked off and the file closed when the real couple in question independently interview at the culmination of this play.
This is a cold surface overview and on the surface of things, it is a cold reality that such positions exist within any society.
However, Genuine and Stable is neither a cold nor surface dramatisation. It has a strong beating heart.
Uhyoung Choi’s penmanship is alleged to be drawn from personal experiences as an immigration officer, but the scripting is more nuanced than simply retelling stories and is by no means anecdotal.
It forges links between the examined and the examiner that keenly reflect human observation, empathy and honest introspection.
The tone deployed is often light, rarely curt and bitter, with some added brief tangential sociopolitical commentary as almost throw away subtext – a tasty morsel for the more astute to digest, whilst small enough for those craving a simpler entertainment diet to swallow whole unnoticed.
Resultantly, without further elaboration, Choi retains an integrity to the title of this piece.
This single mindedness runs through the supporting media and format of the entire play. The centre of the stage is chiefly an office with desks shifting positions to accommodate other break-away locations but is also effectively utilised to complement the adjusting views of the immigration officers.
Importantly, this is also the inside. Though the walls are invisible, a pathway circumnavigates the outside of the office whereby the relationship literally plays out. A relationship in limbo currently holding outsider status.
Stage back is a multimedia wall which enlarges the supporting documentation of the application, such as photos and declarations and displays the technical jargon reflecting the stipulations and caveats being legally examined and transforms into the drinks menu at a cafe and eatery.
Overall, the set is visually simple, regularly requiring mime and sound effects to fill in the gaps and trigger audience imagination.
Thus, much of the weight of this 4 hander rests on the shoulders of its players. This is really where this work shines.
The relationship in question is between Junghwi Jo, as the Korean immigrant applicant Sujin, who has already studied in Aotearoa and considers it home, as she develops a relationship with Jeremy, played by Jono Capel-Baker, who carries a nervous energy cowering under the shadow of his status as the son of property investors.
Her playful self-confidence initialises a believably twee and flirtatious early hook up after a house party.
Both characters retain a consistency throughout. We are not treated to much of the normality or intimacy of their relationship, partly because it is suggesting how fast the time elapses, but also to add to the question of genuine stability.
We are, however, treated to some very effective emotional peaks and troughs. For Sujin this culminates in totally believable distressed sobs in the foetal position, whilst Jeremy’s more subtle adjustments show the genuine anxiety within his powerless resignation to being a privileged son and how quickly that turns into self-disappointment.
The immigration agents, Charlotte and Laura, are played by Gabriella Chauca and Natasha Daniel respectively.
The message delivery depends upon the role of Laura as it specifically connects her life outside work to details within it and both opens and closes the complication (and story) through her.
She does so with an ongoing genuine self-examination and suspends a sincere audience rapport to incite contemplation.
In some respects, this leaves the role of Charlotte as the least necessary, but in truth, Gabriella Chauca keeps much of the tone of the entire piece at her timing. She is notably natural as a relationally soothing work colleague and provides a necessary balance to Laura’s fastidious work approach.
These agents are believable and engaging, and complementary to the art form of this story.
In their minds, the ambiguity of the relationship in question develops the tension. This is a flimsy tool on which to develop tension. As an audience we continually believe we know more of the relationship than the officers do, as we are bearing witness to it.
It is not impossible that we are actually viewing the relationship under scrutiny entirely through the minds of the agents interpreting the paperwork, but there is nothing that explicitly indicates we are, whilst many specific indications we are not.
It remains a none-the-less possible interpretation.
The conclusion is then played out on the back of this projecting a genuine sense of tension within Sujin and spotlit to expedite this expression, but for the audience it is more of an unravelling of a reality than a tension – we simply are not as ambiguous and more than likely as a majority to tend to relate to the oft soullessness of work.
Herein, another soulful taste can be savoured. As the dates facts and figures are examined and interpreted one can consider the possible outcomes for the couple, but one layer deeper the agent is reflecting the nature of her work onto the nature of her own complications.
Rather than simply resulting in a purely circumstantial solution through the status of the title, Genuine and Stable questions the identity contained within the title, which extends from the soul of the applicant, through the soulless work into the soul of the employee but continues into the soul of the audience.
Giles Wynn
Genuine and Stable is currently playing at the Herald Theatre Aotea Centre until 13 December 2025. Tickets are available HERE.
