Two new shows tackle topics of mothers and racial stereotypes

'Grace Kalaiselvi and Nur Suhaili Safari Wijaya, both single and childless, spoke to 12 mothers to devise their multilingual work of verbatim theatre, Mother I - Amma Naan - Ibu Aku. It runs from May 5 to 8 at The Substation Theatre.

The actresses in Mother I - Amma Naan - Ibu Aku met a few years ago while studying at the Intercultural Theatre Institute co-founded by theatre practitioners T. Sasitharan - the dramaturg for this work - and the late Kuo Pao Kun.

Suhaili, who turns 30 this year, had to drop out of the drama programme to help support her family of seven, including two brothers, three sisters and their mother. She works as a preschool teacher.

Kalaiselvi, 39 and a regular in MediaCorp's drama Tanglin, remained keen to work with Suhaili and thought of expanding on their mutual respect for their mothers.

Her mother worked as a cleaner to support three children and was not reconciled to her youngest's acting ambitions until she realised Kalaiselvi could make a living at it.

She says: "Sometimes you have this tension with your parents. You don't want to talk to them, but you don't know what they've gone through."

Suhaili says: "The piece is not personal, but there's a similar thread in all the interviews we've done. We see similarities in how our own mothers struggled."

The performance includes the stories of single mothers, women who cannot have children and women who have chosen not to.

All the women interviewed have been invited to the performance, including Suhaili's mother, whose voice will be heard singing lullabies during the show.

There are discounts for viewers who want to buy tickets for one or both parents and Kalaiselvi plans to have her mother in the audience too.

"For a long time, my mother has been asking why I don't want to get married and have kids," she says. "She'll understand why I wanted to do this project."'

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