Urdu adaptation of ‘The Mother’ confronts motherhood, loneliness, empty nests

KARACHI: In many South Asian households, confrontation is often replaced by quiet endurance. Emotional restraint is learned early, folded into a cultural ideal that venerates the “sacrificial mother.” A figure so consumed by caregiving and stability that the woman behind the role slowly disappears.

The Mother, running until January 18 at the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) in Karachi, ruptures this long-held myth.

Originally written by Oscar-winning French playwright Florian Zeller, the Urdu adaptation, translated and directed by Usama Khan, marks a rare and significant moment for Karachi’s theatre scene. Structured as a “farce tragedy,” the play is both sharply witty and emotionally devastating, confronting the unspoken fractures families often learn to live with.

Starring Nimra Bucha, Sonil Shanker, Ashmal Lalwany, and Eshah Shakeel, the production centers on a woman’s isolation, drawing audiences into the psychological debris of her inner world. At its core is the stark reality of Empty Nest Syndrome. The moment a mother confronts the fact that her life’s work has been to raise people who must, inevitably, leave.

Speaking to Pakistan TV Digital, Bucha described the play as a rejection of sentimental portrayals of motherhood. She reflected on how a mother’s existence is frequently reduced to “perpetually feeding and clothing” her family, only to culminate in a profound sense of erasure.

“It talks about how a woman who is a mother just loses all sense of self… and also how age makes people invisible,” Bucha said. “How slowly it diminishes, diminishes, diminishes to the point where you can’t hear.”

“I don’t think I ever listened, I didn’t hear my mom. It was as if she was just talking.”

While the tragedy is universal, it resonates acutely with a generation suspended between tradition and individual agency. The play asks an uncomfortable question: can personal freedom ever be achieved without being underwritten by someone else’s sustained sacrifice?

That tension crystallizes in the relationship between mother and son. Lalwany, who plays the son, told Pakistan TV Digital that the guilt associated with leaving home is deeply ingrained from childhood.

“There’s this guilt attached to walking away. It’s never easy, even though it’s the only option you have,” he said. “The amount of guilt you go through when you even raise your voice a little… you want to find out who you are and what you want to be, but children are never sure about their relationship because there are such different demands and expectations from both sides.”

The production has also drawn international attention. Zeller himself shared the play’s poster on Instagram and now follows members of the cast, an endorsement that underscores the adaptation’s fidelity and impact.

Khan, the director, said he was intent on resisting moral absolutes. Explaining his approach to Pakistan TV Digital, he noted why the story transcends its French origins.

“Emotion, every person everywhere feels the same, especially in a mother’s relationship to her family,” Khan said. “The story is very simple, but the way it’s written is quite complicated. He hasn’t shown a ‘helpless’ mother or son; every character exists in a complete grey area.”

The Mother is deliberately unsettling, abstract, disorienting, and emotionally dense, mirroring the fractured consciousness of its protagonist. It asks audiences to sit with silence, to examine what goes unsaid at family tables, and to recognize the quiet disappearances that occur within familiar walls.

If you have ever felt the weight of an empty room or the tension beneath a shared meal, The Mother speaks directly to that experience.