Curry me, curry you
Tales From Amma’s Kitchen heats up the stage with hilarious tales of love and family.
IT was a case of last minute inspiration. Two years ago, playwright Fa Abdul wanted to send a few scripts to the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Penang, an annual festival of short plays.
There was less than an hour to the final deadline, and Fa realised there was still time to submit one more script. On that particular day, she had also cooked some mutton curry.
“So I thought, why don’t I write something about that? So I just started writing, and just before 12, I sent in whatever I had,” recalls Fa in a recent interview at KLPac.The result? Her play Amma’s Mutton Curry ended up being hugely popular. The play, which focuses on the relationship between an Indian mother and her son, ended up sweeping six awards at the festival in 2016, including Best Script and Best Overall Production.
“So if I had been cooking something else that day, the play could have been completely different. It might have ended up Amma’s Fish Curry or something,” she adds with a laugh.
Inspired by the short script’s success, Fa, 43, developed her tale of mutton curry into a full-length play.
Fa is, among other things, a media trainer, producer, director and playwright, whose plays have won numerous awards at the Short+Sweet Festivals in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. She is also known for her online columns.
Now, her Tales From Amma’s Kitchen is being staged at KLPac, starting May 4. It travels up to Penangpac for a series of shows, starting May 11.
Actress Narinder Kaur, who played Amma in the original 10-minute play, returns to reprise her role.
Part of the reason Fa wrote the play, she adds, is to highlight local Indian stories and actors.
Tales From Amma’s Kitchen which runs for nearly two hours, sees Fa in complete control of the show as director, producer and writer.
“I’ve always wanted to do a piece about an Indian family, and the Indian community. I spoke to a lot of Indian theatre actors in Malaysia, who told me they don’t have a lot of opportunities. They often end up as extras, or ensemble members. For lead roles, it’s more difficult. So I figured, why don’t we show that there can be a market for Indian-flavoured plays as well.”
Tales From Amma’s Kitchen is another “Tales” entry from Fa and her company Big Nose Productions, which presented previous works like Tales From The Bedroom, Tales From The Jamban and Tales From The Mamak.
This time, her play tells the story of Amma (Narinder) a strong-willed and lovable Indian mother, who single-handed raised her two daughters Jothi (Tilottama Pillai) and Gayathri (Felicia Samuel) and son Raju (Mithran Balakrishnan). Amma loves to cook, as well as share pearls of wisdom with her children, who don’t always like hearing what she has to say.
“There’s something in that play for everyone. Be it some situation or shade of character. It will connect with the masses, either you’ve been in that situation, or you’ve seen someone in a situation like that before,” says actress Tilottama.
It’s not only family that Amma has her hands full with. She also has to deal with the affections of the amorous Muthu Uncle (Charles Roberts), as well as Mei Ling (Wei Ling Tan), her son’s Chinese girlfriend who (to her horror!) does not like curry. Other characters include Bunga (Mia Sabrina Mahadir), an Indonesian maid who is more Malaysian than most Malaysians, and Shahbudeen (Raja Shah Irshad), a Pakistani foreign worker who encounters the colourful family.
Narinder is one to vouch for the play’s heartwarming mainstream appeal.
“It’s all a lot of fun, there’ll be a lot of laughter. And there will be a lot of moments which will resonate with you, you’ll watch and think ‘oh that is actually my family!’” she says.
Narinder, 67, discovered acting in her university days, but took a break from it for 50 years to devote time to her roles as a teacher, nurse and mother of three daughters. Now with more time for herself in her retirement years, she returned to the stage in 2016’s Shakespeare Goes Bollywood by Big Nose Productions and The Actors Studio.
The play is an interconnected short tales series about Amma and her household, some serious, some poignant, many hilarious.
Raju’s “Chinese Pombele”, for example, is the story of Mei Ling and Amma trying to come to common ground over various tricky subjects, while “When Budeen Meets Bunga” tells of a relationship blossoming between two foreign workers. Amma’s “Intervention”, on the other hand, is when Jothi and Gayathri discover their mother is having “extracurricular activities”.
While the play does revolve around a close-knit Indian family, all the cast of the show remind us that Tales From Amma’s Kitchen’s greatest highlight is how any person, particularly a Malaysian, will be able to conenct with the issues and relationships touched on.
“When people sit down and watch Tales From Amma’s Kitchen, it will feel like almost looking into an actual family’s kitchen,” says Fa. Tales From Amma’s Kitchen, presented by Big Nose Productions, is on at Pentas 2, KLPac, Jalan Strachan, off Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah in Kuala Lumpur from May 4-6. Tickets are RM45. It then moves on to Stage 2, Penangpac from May 11-13, where tickets are RM40. For more info, visit www.klpac.org or www.ticketpro. com.my. Call KLPac (03-4047 9000) or Penangpac (04-8991 722).