By Abigail Arunga
Award winning author and poet Adipo Sidang’ brings you a play that promises to be as enthralling as its name: In the Seashell Hum. This theatrical piece deals with the heaviness and complexities of mental health in a way that is multilayered and nuanced, addressing a darker side that we can often see and yet refuse to talk about.
The plot follows the main character, Baraka, through a world that rotates in his mind; Baraka, according to his doctor, has a mind which is a landscape of hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions. Though eloquent and gifted, Baraka feels trapped in what seems like the humdrum rhythm of his everyday life. But beneath the surface is a constant battle.
This play lays bare in a sensitive and delicate way the weight of mental illness on both the affected and their loved ones, and explores what it means to struggle with mental wellness as a creative like Baraka – a boy child, moving through a life in which he is grasping at figments cloistered in his beautifully inventive mind.
Nick Ndeda is a multi-award-winning actor, writer, director, radio and TV personality who has featured in over 40 plays, plus film & TV.
Set to premiere on Friday May 15 at the Kenya National Theatre, In The Seashell Hum boasts a star studded cast whose combined theatre and film experience provides a solid foundation for skillful storytelling: Nick Ndeda (The Great Kenyan Bake Off, 18 Hours), Foi Wambui (Followers, Too Early For Birds: Badassery), Angela Mwandanda (She Gets Me, County 49), Ben Tekee (Njoro Wa Uba, The Dying Need No Shoes) and Gitura Kamau (Tea With My Father, Lusala).
This play by Adipo Sidang’, famed for his prophetic and satirical play Parliament of Owls (currently a Kenyan set book) has been described as
Deeply engaging, weighty in its dialogue and entertaining at the same time.”
This production is directed by Victor Gatonye and produced by Mudamba Mudamba, with legendary producer Eric Musyoka (Decimal Media) coming on as the Sound and Music Director.
Foi Wambui – a multi-hyphenate creative and award-winning Kenyan stage and screen actor known for her range, versatility, and emotional depth.
Ahead of the May 15 premiere, LIGALA/Agora Theatre is running free activations, skits and discussions every Saturday around the play and its themes: mental health, the boy child, masculinity, and the need to speak about the challenges men face. After the theatre run in Nairobi, the play will travel to other cities, starting with Mombasa and Malindi town, then Kisumu, Eldoret and Nakuru, before crossing to Kampala and Dar es Salaam.
Adipo Sidang is a Kenyan award-winning author, poet and playwright, and culture exponent. His coming-of-age novella, A Boy Named Koko (Longhorn Publishers, 2017), won the 2017 Canadian Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature (Kenya), was shortlisted for the Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature (Africa) the same year, and the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 2019. He is the author of one poetry collection: Parliament of Owls (Native Intelligence under the Contact Zones Nairobi Series, 2016), a collection heavily inspired by folklore and the cadenced narrative voice akin to Luo oral literature. He adapted the title poem in this collection into a stage play, Parliament of Owls (EAEP, 2021) – a political satire set in the Bird Kingdom in which the mysterious Royal Owl rules the kingdom with an iron fist. Originally staged in 2017 by his theatre group, Agora Theatre, the play is a current setbook in secondary schools in Kenya. Adipo’s latest play, In the Seashell Hum, explores mental health, and its deep and yet solitary interaction with the human condition.
Tickets are available on Madfun.com.