Mama Looking for Her Cat《寻找小猫的妈妈》

Restage of a Kuo Pao Kun Play
By NAFA theatre diploma graduation students
Written by Jalyn Han

It was very well staged and moved me to tears. Even more than Grandmother Tongue by W!ld Rice Theatre.

Presented mostly in Mandarin, with smithereens of dialect and English, this play talks about this mother who has many children (cats). She reads to them e.g. with story of "The Hare and the Tortoise" and binds them together with her love, symbolised by the red string which she places on them that links them up to her.

The children jump rope which led to a squabble. The mother has to manage that. 

The children grow up and one protests about her love for feeding cats. One talks about a mother who eventually committed suicide. I feel the pain and how gek sim the mother is. Mother only speaks dialect and this is re-staged to incorporate the dialects of this class - which includes familiar tones but are different from Singapore Hokkien or Teochew. This class of about 15 have about 3 Singaporeans and the rest are from China. There are no surtitles which I felt was a pity for educating e.g. the young 7-8 year old girl in front of me, and the Dean who sat throughout the entire play. And for me who might appreciate the play better. Nonetheless the acting was very good, and the body language was easily understood even though the language differs in each state in China.


Mother tries to look for her cat. She bumps into an elderly stranger, of similar age, who does not understand her language. Yet they can communicate through signals, hand gestures and intonations. I love how they portray this increasing loss of communication, through dialects, through the narrow-minded minds and hearts to open up to strangers, which is very real today in Singapore where we see new citizens and increasing xenophobia.

This girl from China who needs the toilet urgently. She approaches the Indian hawker, the Malay uncle and the SG Chinese girl. They shun her. "I don't speak Chinese." With the magic wand, they can now and introduce the eclectic mix of Singapore's food and culture to her.

This play has piqued my interest in KPK's original screenplay. Ping me if you have it!