Written by Tanya Ragupathi.

“Can you see me or not?” Savitri “Savi” Channa asked. The 68-year-old hobbled into view, adjusting the angle of her laptop’s camera.

Of course, “Savi” was actually being played by the sprightly 33-year-old actress and comedian Sharul Channa. The character—a Singaporean retired teacher—had been carefully constructed by Sharul, based on AWARE’s 2019 research on female family caregivers.

Sharul moulded her portrayal of Savi into a 45-minute long comedic monologue titled Am I Old?, which played at the Drama Centre Black Box in March. With Singapore’s circuit breaker making live theatre impossible, however, AWARE and Sharul decided to put on three virtual sessions of Am I Old? in April. Conducted over the video platform Zoom, the sold-out shows were watched by more than 300 people in all. I attended the performance on Friday, 24 April.

Am I Old? sheds light on the experiences of family caregivers in Singapore, and the sometimes painful, sometimes poignant reality one faces when ageing. Sharul employs comedy to make these weighty issues all the more relatable. (This is not her first time working with AWARE—her 2019 piece, Crazy Poor Sita, which earned her a Best Actress nomination at The Straits Times LIFE! Theatre Awards, highlighted the plight of women living below the poverty line in Singapore.)

After she had been assured, by moderator Shailey Hingorani from AWARE, that the audience could indeed see her, Savi kicked off her show last Friday night by asking the audience to share their ages by typing into the Chat function in Zoom. As the answers came flooding into the chat, Savi seemed to reflect on the different stages of her own life.

Savi then recounted her journey into caregiving, from her father’s untimely death to her mother’s stroke. As her parents’ only unmarried daughter, Savi was thrust into the role of caregiver for her mother. On the other hand, her miserly brother belittled her efforts and grilled her about everything. (How she could possibly be pressed for cash and time with a domestic worker to help out?) Recalling her frustration at his lack of empathy, Savi exasperatedly asks the audience, “You think it’s very easy to be a caregiver, is it?”

Pulling out a handwritten timetable, Savi walked the audience through her daily routine, where every moment revolved around her mother’s needs. Despite the undoubtedly gruelling schedule, she said, she grew closer to her mother over the 10 years spent caring for her: “I understood her as a woman and she understood my pain.”

In a particularly emotional scene, Savi recounts a moment when her mother insisted that she make tea for her (long-dead) father as well. Sharul looked at the audience and asked, “Have you ever made tea for a dead person?” Savi’s mother passed on soon after.

Savi ended off by chuckling ironically about how her mother left her with a hereditary gift: a wheelchair.

As the audience gave Sharul a rousing round of applause, the second half of Am I Old?, a post-show panel discussion, began. Panellists Dr Joanne Yoong, an applied economist, and Quen Wong, a freelance filmmaker and former family caregiver, joined Sharul and Shailey to discuss the practical and psychological impact of caregiving, and the support systems in place (or not) to help Singapore’s caregivers.

Joanne pointed out that while Singapore does provide “a lot of support on paper”, caregivers on the ground lack the know-how to navigate the existing schemes.

Quen echoed this, drawing from her own experience. Your first priority as a caregiver is the person you’re caring for, she noted, and you often have “little bandwidth left” to figure out the often confusing resources for which you might be eligible.

With a flurry of audience questions coming in over the chat, the panel discussion touched on the state’s responsibility to help caregivers (e.g. with stronger financial support) and how individuals can prepare themselves for the emotional and physical toll of caregiving.

To the latter question, Sharul highlighted the importance of having “difficult but necessary conversations” about retirement and ageing early on with loved ones. She urged people to “have conversations at the community-level”.

Comedies like Am I Old? are certainly one way to make such grim issues more accessible.

AWARE and Sharul Channa are putting on three more virtual performances of Am I Old? on 9, 10 and 15 May. Get tickets here.