Coleen MacPherson in Searching For Aimai | Photo by Seanna Kennedy Photography
To simply look at Coleen Shirin MacPherson, a pale complexion and bright blue eyes, the Irish side of her heritage wouldn’t be surprising, but you’d likely never suspect her mother is Parsi—an Indian lineage that can be traced back to Persia. The sense of displacement, of a vital part of her identity hidden from view and unacknowledged, and the subsequent grasping for roots, informs her very personal solo show, Searching For Aimai, presented by Cahoots Theatre.
MacPherson portrays a woman on the cusp of giving birth, who wants desperately to reach back in time and connect to her great grandmother, Aimai. With a pomegranate, some candles an a glass of water, she cloisters herself in her bathroom. In a state of heightened awareness and concentration, the space around her expands and contracts as she makes psychic contact with her past and even a representation of the future, the unborn daughter inside her.
Shannon Lea Doyle’s set is a stylized depiction of a bathroom—a tub flanked by toilet and sink, surrounded by an expanse of blue tile that breaks off into Tetris-y fragments at the edges, furthering that sense of collapsing space around her. On a wide backdrop, Laura Warren’s phantasmagorical projections add a cosmic, surrealist spectacle to MacPherson’s poetic text.
In addition to offering a fanciful audio-visual experience, Raha Javanfar’s direction incorporates a number of dynamic forms that add theatrical texture to MacPherson’s performance. Speaking into a microphone and caught in a cartoonish spotlight, MacPherson’s delivery suddenly evolves into a stand-up routine. While such stylistic flourishes can sometimes be gimmicky, there is weight and purpose to these choices made here.
The props, which are mundane, domestic items—candles, glass or water, blanket—MacPherson’s weaves these into her gestural language. Her body glides and contorts, shifting fluidly with the rhythms and moods of her internal journey. In one whimsical sequence, she pulls a length of fabric out from the sink cabinet as if by magic. Methodically tucking, pleating and draping it over herself, she completes the sari that serves as a tangible manifestation of her heritage. This fabric is eventually unraveled and stylishly repurposed into the set as a sort of token or mystical tether.
Searching For Aimai feels grounded in a mundane reality while simultaneously conveying an expansive truth that stretches across time and space. MacPherson seems to suspend herself in this fluctuating, celestial membrane she’s conjured. A crucial aspect of this is the very palpable sense of lineage. Four generations of women are evoked here, with MacPherson’s pregnant mother figure as a sort of yearning conduit. At only an hour, MacPherson and Javanfar have crafted an experience that is surprisingly epic without feeling overstuffed or rushed. Lilian Adom’s lighting design, an ebb and flow of coolness and warmth, as well as Janice Jo Lee’s rich and cinematic score, complete the persuasive aesthetic.
Searching For Aimai
February 15 to March 1, 2026
The Theatre Centre, BMO Incubator
(1115 Queen St West)
60 minutes
Coleen MacPherson in Searching For Aimai | Photo by Seanna Kennedy Photography