Synopsis:

Being in control is very much like cooking. One needs to be meticulous at every step, be mindful of one's actions and not let things stew too long. It's like making Asam Pedas (spicy tamarind fish), for example, a beloved Malay dish known for its tart, sour and spicy profiles, that is quick to cook but always on the brink of burning.

For Roslan, whose dispassionate wife's routine includes cooking Asam Pedas for him and their two children, food is one of the few things that add colour to his life. Like the dish, his temper tends to rise and hit boiling point, all too quickly sometimes. Gentle and affectionate one moment, he singes and sears the next.

At home, there is unspoken love, and there are painful scars. There are responsibilities, and there is the ideal of what a home should be. How will the cycles of joy and sadness, resentment and resignation be broken when they are always teetering on the brink and on rinse and repeat? What are his limits of control?

First staged in 1995, Cerita Cinta marks playwright and director Noor Effendy Ibrahim's return to Malay theatre since Bilik Ahmad Berdaki (2009). Presenting an unabashed view of the threads that bind a family, it examines the dysfunctionality of an atypical Malay household.