Next we get acquainted with Sarasa, a mother who finds out the hard way that pushing her daughter too hard to excel in dance does not pay off. One day in a fit of anger, Sarasa’s daughter elopes with the tailor’s son, leaving her mother devastated. Sarasa then re-lives her own “celebrity” days and ends up dancing around her daughter’s room, dreaming of what could have been.

Finally Mak Su, a Makyong diva, reminisces about the good old days when she would travel from town to small town, and even get paid for it. Now the state government has banned all performances of Makyong and Mak Su sustains herself by drying squids by the sea. She recounts the days when she was at her peak, with the title when the audience looked forward to her performances and how she  earned her name “Mariam Titisan Airmata” – “Mary of the teary eyes”

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The curtain raiser for the performance is August Strindberg's The Stronger, featuring Nicole Ann-Thomas and Kay Chin.

Here, two women run into each other in a café on Christmas Eve. One is married and has been out shopping for presents for her family, while the other is unmarried and sitting alone in the cafe reading magazines and having a drink.

At face value, they are friends who go back a long way. The entire play consists of nothing more than a single conversation between these two women. There is nothing particularly out of the ordinary. In fact, one of the women doesn’t even speak in the entire performance.

But in this one simple scene which is rich in allegory, August Strindberg creates an episode of  incredible, poetic power – a snapshot of life that can be very intense and powerful. 

In The Name of Love is directed by Christopher Jacobs, sponsored by HSBC and presented by Masakini Theatre Company.