“IN THE SEASHELL HUM” Mental Health Play by poet and playwright ADIPO SIDANG’

The play is star-studded. Nick Ndeda (Baraka), Foi Wambui (Salma), Gitura Kamau (Athman) and Angela Mwandanda (Kendi) meet in the “In the Seashell Hum”, a mental health play from LIGALA/Agora Theatre and set for world premiere on Friday May 15 (7pm) at the Kenya National Theatre with public shows on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 (3pm and 6.30pm).

The play is written by award-winning author, poet and playwright, Adipo Sidang' who's famed for his prophetic and satirical play Parliament of Owls - a current setbook in Kenyan secondary schools.

The play, described as deeply engaging, weighty in its dialogue and entertaining at the same time, is directed by Victor Gatonye and produced by Mudamba Mudamba with the legendary producer Eric Musyoka (Decimal Media) as the Sound and Music Director.

Written with the artistic and poetic flair that can only be characteristic of Adipo Sidang’s style, the play explores in a profound way the mind of a visual artist groping in the dark, desiring fulfillment in two worlds, perhaps even more.

In Baraka’s mind, there exists the world as we know it: multi-layered, complex, and ordinary. Dr Fumba, his doctor, describes Baraka’s mind as a landscape of “hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions”. Baraka is eloquent and gifted as a visual artist and an experimental thinker with a fascination for IT. He feels trapped in the humdrum rhythm of coastal urban life, sharing a fragile existence with his nurse-girlfriend Salma (Foi Wambui). But beneath the surface, Baraka battles persistent voices - “strange things” - and struggles with alcoholism, a cycle from which he has relapsed several times.

In this overwhelming grief, Baraka still chases truth, like a dimming star lodged in the heart of a sky – distant and unreachable, even meaningless. His sister, Kendi, says, Baraka’s voice is a wound. His mind bends to and sometimes even augments imaginary voices and sounds: the seashell hum, the plink sound of water dripping in the cistern, stiletto footsteps, the spooky whistling of trees, the wild roar of waves, whispers. Yet, his mind is triggered by the bold radio static from his rubber-banded, old transistor radio that crackles like the breaking of ‘mental bones’ from time to time, or by the menacing voice that is Athman (Gitura Kamau) – an older cousin-friend he worships but one who forces him to question his own artistry and existence.

This play lays bare in a sensitive and delicate way the weight of mental illness on both the sick and their loved ones, and what it means to struggle with mental illness as a creative, like Baraka – a boy child, beyond oscillating in a multi-layered world in which he grasps at figments cloistered in his beautifully inventive mind.

Tickets are available on Madfun.com 

Pre-staging session:

Ahead of the May 15 premiere, LIGALA/Agora Theatre is running, every Saturday, activations, play skits and discussions on the play and mental health generally while also focusing on the boy child and masculinity given the fact that men hardly speak about their challenges.

The first such discussion took place at Creatives Garage, The Mall, Westlands last Saturday 18 April. The next will take place this coming Saturday 25 April at Mageuzi Hum/Pawa 254 and subsequent ones to follow at Annos One Fine Day in Kibera, GoDown Arts Centre and in Eastlands. 

Post-staging:

The play will travel to other cities in Kenya starting with Mombasa and Malindi town, then to Kisumu, Eldoret and Nakuru before crossing to Kampala and Dar es Salaam.

Thereafter, Sidang’ intends to transition the play into film to reach wider audience.