An immigrant and a New Zealander claim they are in love. Two immigration agents must decide if they are telling the truth.
Genuine and Stable is a production that takes its title from the bureaucratic language of immigration policy, and in doing so, it immediately signals its intent to explore the intersection of love and regulation. What might sound like a bland phrase on paper becomes a powerful thematic anchor for a play that asks how relationships are judged, not only by the people within them but by the institutions that hold power over their futures. The story centres on Korean-born Sujin and her Kiwi boyfriend Jeremy, who apply for a partnership visa. Immigration officers Laura and Charlotte are tasked with determining whether their relationship is truly “genuine and stable.” As they sift through evidence, photos become exhibits, memories turn into testimony, and assumptions conflict with fact. What begins as a routine case quickly spirals into contradictions, and the line between the personal and the professional blurs.
The premise is deceptively simple: a couple in love, a bureaucratic hurdle, and two officers who must decide if the relationship is authentic. Yet the writing reveals multiple layers beneath this surface. The officers are not merely checking boxes; they are interpreting intent, direction, and milestones, and in doing so they expose the biases and stereotypes embedded in the system. The play asks what counts as evidence of love. Is it a shared lease, a joint bank account, or public displays of affection? Or is it something intangible, harder to measure, and therefore more vulnerable to being dismissed? The rulebook projected onto the back wall shows the audience the actual guidelines used to judge partnerships in New Zealand, and the vagueness of these rules allows for subjectivity. Officers can be generous or strict, charitable or cynical, depending on their own worldview, and this subjectivity is both fascinating and unsettling.
The production also highlights the emotional toll on couples who must prove their intimacy to strangers. Love becomes performance, and private people are forced into public gestures. Financial decisions are accelerated under duress, with couples pressured into buying houses or merging finances not because they are ready, but because the state demands proof in a specified amount of time before they are faced with deportation. Organic growth is replaced by artificial milestones, and the play asks what happens when intimacy must be documented, when affection must be staged for an audience of officials. This pressure creates its own stresses, distorting the natural rhythm of relationships and forcing couples to navigate a system that can feel both arbitrary and invasive.
The staging is minimal but inventive, relying on a cast of four to carry the weight of multiple perspectives. Sujin and Jeremy embody the couple at the centre of the case, while Laura and Charlotte shift roles, narrating, interpreting, and sometimes embodying the couple’s story themselves. The couple reenacts moments of their relationship, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes on the sidelines, sometimes even among the audience, blurring the line between observation and participation. The set design is striking in its simplicity, with long tubes and sheets of plastic hovering overhead evoking the sterile abstraction of an office, while modular pieces rotate and interconnect to create restaurants, bars, homes, and workplaces. This constant transformation mirrors the instability of the couple’s situation, their world always shifting, always provisional.
Lighting and sound are well executed and directed, creating an immersive environment that surrounds the audience. At times, however, the audio risks drowning out dialogue, making it difficult to hear the actors clearly. Projected text adds a documentary layer, grounding the drama in real-world policy, though the occasional spelling error (“far” instead of “fair”) momentarily breaks immersion. The style of the flooring and the wheels on the sets also make some of the transitions noisy, but these technical imperfections do little to undermine the overall professionalism of the production. Costuming is consistent and effective, and the integration of actual immigration rules and guidelines is eye-opening, offering New Zealand audiences a glimpse into processes they might otherwise never encounter.
For all its bureaucratic framing, Genuine and Stable is ultimately a love story, and it is disarmingly cute. The tenderness of Sujin and Jeremy, the small gestures of care, and the quiet resilience in the face of scrutiny combine to tug at the heartstrings. Even those who pride themselves on emotional detachment will find themselves moved. The pacing, at 80 minutes without interval, does sag slightly around the halfway mark, but by the end the momentum returns, and the audience is left wanting more. The lack of interval contributes to the immersive intensity, though it also demands stamina from the audience.
What makes the production so compelling is its ability to balance critique with tenderness. It succeeds because it takes something dry and bureaucratic (the language of immigration policy) and reveals its profound human consequences. It shows how love is commodified, how intimacy is measured, and how relationships are forced into unnatural shapes by external pressures. Yet it does so with warmth, humour, and emotional depth. By the end, the audience is left with two impressions: first, that the immigration system is imperfect, riddled with subjectivity and bias; and second, that love, even under scrutiny, remains resilient. The play is both critique and celebration, a reminder that relationships are not defined by paperwork but by the quiet, genuine moments that no checklist can capture.
At 80 minutes, Genuine and Stable is a compact but powerful piece of theatre. Its imperfections (minor errors, occasional pacing issues, noisy transitions) are outweighed by its creativity, emotional resonance, and social relevance. What might sound bureaucratic in title is anything but bland in execution. It is a heartfelt exploration of love under pressure and a sharp commentary on the systems that seek to define it, leaving audiences both moved and provoked long after the lights go down.
Genuine and Stable performance run from December 9-13, 2025 at Auckland's Herald Theatre. Tickets can be purchased here