Songs to Soothe a Broken Heart first came to life as a podcast, a poetic ode, if you will. It was born from a deeply sad, tender story: a love once vibrant and musical, now reduced to silence, the relationship gone but the love lingering stubbornly in the corners of a fractured heart. When I brought in a voice artist to narrate it, we went through multiple postponements and one full cancellation. The grief held in the story was heavy. When they finally read it aloud, the studio felt soaked in sorrow, a palpable silence between breaths and lines.
Editing it was no easier. Every listen meant revisiting not only the words but the exquisite score, composed by the gifted Zaituni Wambui and Anariko, whose music felt like it had been plucked from the heart of the story itself.
And yet, once the podcast had lived and breathed, I knew it had to transform again, this time into a stage piece. I adapted it into a one-woman play, casting the seasoned, award-winning Muthoni Gathecha, whose performance held both raw fragility and unwavering strength. I chose to stage it in a bar and not a traditional theatre because I believe stories, like music, should live where the people are. This was an effort to reimagine performance in everyday spaces.
About the Play
Songs to Soothe a Broken Heart is an intimate, emotionally charged monologue that follows one woman’s quiet unraveling through the echoes of a lost love. Set against the humdrum of a Nairobi morning commute, she drifts between memories and meetings, grief quietly scoring each moment like a song that never really stops playing.
From the haunting ballads of Rihanna to the sultry lyricism of Akua Naru, every track becomes a portal—into joy, loss, sensuality, and the slow erosion of a love that once seemed unbreakable. Even as she navigates the most mundane office rituals, the past hums beneath the surface, her heartbreak held together by the very music that once bound them.
But within the ache is a subtle defiance. The playlist that once belonged to two people becomes her own soundtrack for survival. A meditation on memory, vulnerability, and the healing power of music, this monologue is a love letter to resilience, and a reminder that even after the silence, the music always finds a way to play on.
