Mina Malik
“May you never be homesick for a home that does not exist,” says the flyer you pick up from your seat at Blacklisted, “and may you always find your way ‘home’”.
On stage—at The Colony in Lahore, it’s a raised, curtainless platform—paces Almitra Mavalvala, small singing bowl in hand, indigo culottes swirling around her ankles. She’s present, but not really. She is surrounded by objects, as if we were in a dorm room with her: truck-art painted kettle and cups on a tray, a framed photo of her and her Nani, comfortable floor cushions and in lieu of posters, printouts of visa applications stamped with a large red rejected, which feels entirely appropriate for a show about the travails of having a green passport. Downstage a tiny ensemble band plays: a sitar, a tabla, a guitar. And with a chime of the singing bowl, we’re off.
A one-person musical show about belonging is a tall offering, and Mavalvala navigates it with warmth and vulnerability. What makes a memoir, one wonders. One thinks of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, the one-woman show that inspired the series.
Audiences love feeling like they know you, and conflate your character with you; actors who play famous villains are often scolded by people as if they were indeed that villain. Is the Almitra on stage ‘real’? Are the six visa rejections real? Choosing to call a performance an autobiographical one offers up to the audience a vulnerable candour, but also limits the extent of the events. Blacklisted could have benefited from a bit of fiction padding out the narrative arc—the advantage of an autobiographical account is that the audience is fully invested in your narrator, but the rigour of performance storytelling still holds: they also love a satisfying climax, a stick-it-to-the-man moment that real life doesn’t necessarily provide.
Blacklisted is every singular, not-ideal passport holder’s story. At one point or another one has filled out a myriad pile of paperwork and paid thousands of non-refundable rupees to an embassy, only to be sent a terse e-mail saying: sorry, better luck next time. In Mavalvala’s case, the ‘next times’ landed her on a blacklist. And there’s nothing like a rejection to make you want something even more, particularly to a nation that has built its romantic imagination on longing. In a series of anecdotes, interspersed with some really charming original songs where Mavalvala’s musical theatre training (and pitch-perfect singing voice) shines, we are drawn into Mavalvala’s world. A rambunctious middle child, an adored granddaughter and isolated friend missing out on milestones because of paperwork—and that moment that pulls at the heart of every person torn between wanting to stay and wanting to flee: your mother telling you not to look back. Moments like these set Blacklisted apart from the usual story of the expat. We all know the longing; when you’re home you want to run and when you’re away you dream of the cooler droning through long afternoons. But the ache of leaving, not home, but your grandmother. Not a city, but the homes. The way Nani describes Pakistan, says Narrator-Almitra, nobody would want to leave.
Anyone who has spent any extended length of time abroad knows that coming back is perhaps harder than the original leaving. You’ve grown, risen like bread out of the tin of routine and neighbourhood and running into your fourth-grade teacher at the grocery store. Even if you weren’t Parsi in a Muslim country and someone who didn’t look very desi you’d have trouble. But “big cities tend to make you feel small”, as Narrator-Almitra sings. Except the one where your permanent address is.
It’s no small coincidence, though, that Blacklisted was developed and first performed by Mavalvala during her stint abroad in Sydney (is that a spoiler?). The play was directed by Jessica Fallico and the musical direction shepherded by Chris Fields. Growth is only possible outside of the constraints of safety, and for people from a country where opportunities to grow are hard to find locally, our rupture feels deeper and more profound. It’s also singularly more terrifying to bring your well-received musical cabaret back home to local audiences, who will examine it with the merciless criticism of someone in the same boat. But this is a rite of passage, much like the travels of yore and Continental Tours and gap years. Perhaps we only love home when we know we can leave. Perhaps the greatest privilege of a pukka love is this, the possibility of return. It is, after all, the fundamental difference between traveler and exile. Blacklisted is a heartfelt, intimate theatre experience. Mavalvala’s Narrator is confident and candid, her caustic moments tempered by humour or the drama of simply launching into song. It’s overall a thoroughly enjoyable performance and this scribe is delighted to see more original theatre making its way back to the local stage.
Photos courtesy of Almitra Mavalvala and the production.
Almitra Mavalvala (She/Her) is a Pakistani performing artist, writer, composer, and independent producer based in Karachi. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music Theatre from the Australian Institute of Music. Her theatre credits include Fiddler on the Roof (Willoughby Theatre Company), Kinky Boots (Packemin Productions), and the feminist comedy Tough Titties. On screen, she appeared in Red Lantern (Noah Films). As a composer, she has created music for The Breaths in Between and is developing her original musical, Aaliyah.
Almitra’s autobiographical show Blacklisted premiered at Hayes Theatre which then toured Australia and Pakistan, tackling displacement, racial profiling, and immigration. Passionate about representation and epilepsy advocacy, she hopes her work sparks meaningful conversations.
She is a resident artist with Echoes of Karoonjhar, preserving Pakistan’s cultural heritage, and with Saffron, supporting women in music production. Almitra is also joining the Qalambaaz Cohort 2025 to develop her first feature film.
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