Indie theatre-maker and performer Slindile Mthembu explores perceptions around African spirituality and mental health in her compelling theatre piece “Old Soul Waiting”, which is set to take place for a one night only performance at the Soweto Theatre on March 31.
“Old Soul Waiting” explores how ancestral calling is misdiagnosed as a form of mental illness and the misconceptions around the two subjects.
In 2021, “Old Soul Waiting” was awarded the Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award for experimental play at the “National Arts Festival”, in Makhanda, Eastern Cape.
“’Old Soul Waiting’ is an ode to one’s old soul, inner calling, or an awakening to self. The inspiration came about when I went back to a memory when I struggled as a young woman to express myself and people would find me a bit weird, because of my awkward silence,” Mthembu says.
“I remembered an experience where my parents wanted to see if a child therapist could help unlock me. Thereafter, I learnt that, by putting my emotions and everything on a paper can help me express myself and that’s when I found my calling to self through writing.
“And I am really honoured to partner with the Soweto Theatre for the first live performance of the Silver Standard Bank Ovation Award-Winning play ‘Old Soul Waiting’.”
She adds: “This ‘one night only’ is really important to be able to take audiences into a world that combines music, film, visual arts and interpretative dance into a fascinating hybrid experiment. So we look forward to the return to ekhaya(home). You do not want to miss it.”
The play follows Bongeziwe, played by Mthembu, who, through her childhood memory of growing up in an orphanage, discovered that she has an old soul or “moya” (spiritual being) that lives in her body.
Bongeziwe wakes up years, days or months later, feeling restrained in a white, isolated room, where she sees the old soul and is examined and treated by a nurse.
Through the examination and treatment, Bongeziwe, falling in and out of sleep, is visited by a makhulu (elderly woman) in her dreams to warn her about the place.
Mthembu explains: “I created her character arc that speaks about her emotional obstacles of being abandoned by her mother at birth and leaving her at an orphanage, and who remembers being raised by a grandmother that adopted her.
"The overarching idea is to speak through the little girl’s calling and to see how the split between the Western and spiritual world perceives her.
“Is she ill or do the other people not understand that this could be a transition period for a woman going through a calling?”
Don’t miss “Old Soul Waiting” at the Soweto Theatre, on Friday, March 31, at 7pm.
Tickets are available at Webtickets for R150.