GEORGE TOWN, May 30 -- It started with a song by three MaJies as they croon lullabies to the babies in their arms, moving through the audience, emphasising their roles as domestic caretakers in a land far from their homes.

The first scene soon leads into a story about Hou Jie and the story behind the MaJies who left their home in Guangdong, China to work as domestic caretakers in Malaya and Singapore in the 1930s.

Told in the perspective of Si En, a young woman whom Hou Jie raised like her own daughter, the theatre performance of "The Letters Never Sent" is an immersive experience delivered in the MaJies' native tongue, Cantonese, interspersed with English narration by Si En.

With a cast of only six actors, the performance delivers its...