Fringe playwright-actress aims to soothe emotions through her personal cat story

As the world gradually moves on from the Covid-19 restrictions, a local playwright-actress wants to use her own stories about her deceased cat, Taro, to comfort the hearts of her audiences.

“One Christmas, by a quirk of fate, I met Taro, a stray cat,” Lei Sam I has written in the introductory note to her short play, titled “Goodbye, See You Soon.” Taro was a cat that she adopted when she was studying in Taiwan.

Unfortunately, Taro was diagnosed with cancer in 2022 and eventually succumbed to the illness.

“Taro’s falling ill and my caring for it along the way have brought to me a lot of inspirations,” Lei said. “I want to utilize these inspirations to provide support, company or even therapeutic results to people [after] the past three years.”

Asked what emotional disturbances she had observed or recognized in others during the past three years, Lei said that given Macau’s small size and its close relationships, people were not used to being alone.

“However, when lockdown arrived, we all had to face solitude, which we were not used to,” the actress said. “Some people may have magnified the difficulties that they faced, while negative information was flying around.”

She added that it could be exceptionally difficult for people who were not used to “mingling with themselves” to do so suddenly and without training.

“They didn’t have the tools to face and understand themselves,” she said, hinting that the feeling could be extreme for some.

She hopes her play, which incorporates drama, live music and interactions, would help calm audience members and open doors for them to move away and on from the past tension.

Tunes will be played with classical guitar and handpan during and after the show.

Although Taro’s fight against cancer was brief, it was a difficult journey, Lei said.

Not only did she need to think about transport for Taro, she also needed to worry about being locked down in the building. After all, red health codes and sudden lockdowns were not from yesteryear.

“If my building got cordoned, I would not even be able to take Taro to the vet,” she recalled.

Thankful for being able to care for Taro on a full-time basis, she felt anxious about the way in which she cared for her terminally ill pet. After falling asleep, she recalled, she would wake regularly to check on the cat’s condition.

She agreed that it was analogous to carers of the chronically ill, and admitted that it was demanding both physically and emotionally.

Her way of releasing pressure was to play the guitar and listen to music. The lessons that she got from the incident, she said, were the realization of life being limited, the focus on happiness, being thankful to matters that were not so.

“Do what you like, meet people whom you like and express your love to those who you love: these are the most precious deeds that we can do,” she said, when asked for suggestions to her struggles.

In response to why she had decided to relocate to Macau with Taro in 2017, she said it was a sense of responsibility – which not only applies to pet keeping but literally to everything – emphasizing that once she had decided to move she couldn’t leave Taro behind.

“Goodbye, See You Soon” will have a total of four shows – from today to Saturday – at pet-friendly business Laika Land.

In addition a photo exhibition – Likewise – will be held from today to Sunday at the same venue. The latter will feature photos of Taro, alongside pre-recorded explanations by Lei, accessible by scanning QR codes placed next to each photo.