Mother, I Want to Tell You

2026-08-22 - 2026-08-23

"Some things left unsaid become a habit; but some things left unsaid become a lifelong regret."

Sometimes, the closer the relationship, the harder it is to communicate effectively.

A word of concern can turn into a misunderstanding; a moment of silence can slowly create distance.

"Mother, I Want to Tell You" is adapted from the screenwriter's true experiences with his mother.

A very ordinary mother-son relationship: living in the same house, yet often not understanding each other's thoughts. The mother is accustomed to facing life and responsibility in a direct, even somewhat forceful way, while the son is constantly torn between sensitivity and a desire to be understood.

They both actually care about each other, but the way they express it often pushes them further apart.

"If we are both trying to get closer, why do we still feel like we are growing further apart?"

Or—do you have someone you've always cared about, but have never truly spoken to?

The story begins from the moment the mother passes away.

The son begins to look back on his past life; those days he thought were long gone are actually still etched in his memory.

Memories aren't arranged chronologically, but rather recalled bit by bit by emotions: arguments, silences, empty tables, and unspoken words.

The father left home long ago; his voice occasionally echoes in memory, like a lingering reverberation.

This work was first presented as a play reading in 2024 and gradually developed through ongoing discussions and refinement, culminating in a full stage production in 2026.

On stage, only the mother and son play the roles, but between them lie many unspoken emotions and unresolved moments.

Neither of them did anything wrong; they simply loved each other in different ways within the same relationship.

This isn't a story about answers, nor a narrative of right and wrong.

It's more like a retrospective—when we re-examine a relationship, we realize that some love was always there, just not properly expressed at the time.

After watching, you might think of someone, or want to send a message to someone you haven't contacted in a long time.

"Mother, I Want to Tell You" is a theatrical work about relationships, memories, and rediscovering each other.

Gather creative workshop

Founded in 2021 by Sun Hsiang and with Chen Yen-ting as artistic director, the Gathering Creative Workshop is an interdisciplinary performance creation team with theater at its core.

We believe that theater is not a presentation of a single answer, but a space where different experiences occur simultaneously.

The theater is a cube where different perspectives coexist.

Different experiences, cultures, and generations converge within it, recombining memories, relationships, and ways of seeing, making each performance a process of reinterpreting the world.

Works take social issues, local culture, and the creators' real-life experiences as starting points, transforming them into narrative-driven contemporary performance language, translating between the everyday and memory, making the theater a field where perception and reflection occur simultaneously.

Fragments and emotions from daily life are reassembled into stories on stage, making watching not only about understanding the plot, but also about rediscovering one's own experiences.

✨ Representative works include *The Switchboard Girl's Fantasy World* and *Mother, I Want to Tell You*.