Thembi Mtshali?s biographical performance of ?A Woman in Waiting? moved a Bermuda Festival audience to tears on Saturday evening at City Hall.

?A Woman In Waiting? chronicles South African singer and actress Thembi Mtshali?s life of waiting, waiting at her grandmother?s house for her parents to come home from the city once a year, later waiting for the chance to see her own daughter once a week, waiting for the bus and ultimately waiting for the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

Ms Mtshali was born in Durban, South Africa. According to the one-woman play, in her early life Ms Mtshali was a nanny to support her own daughter who had to be left at home with her sister. After a series of employers, one particular employer took notice of her singing voice and encouraged her to try out for the stage. An Internet biography states that she got her start singing in school plays, and was discovered by Welcome Msomi, who cast her in the original production of ?Umabthata? in 1972.

?A Woman In Waiting? never really covered her school life for more than a second, and never suggested the existence of this possible bright spot in her life. In an effort to make ?A Woman In Waiting? a portrait of ?every woman?, the budding singer part of Ms Mtshali?s life was toned down to a severe degree.

When her talent was suddenly discovered by her employer, it was a bit of a shock to the audience. It would have been interesting to go into this a little more. How did her family react to her early talent? Did they encourage or discourage her? Did she have secret ambitions early on? ?A Woman In Waiting? first appeared in 1999 at the National Arts Festival in South Africa.

Since then, it has been blazing a trail way around the world. It was co-written by another South African actress Yael Farber, who created The Farber Foundry, a South African theatre company. Miriam Nilofa Crowe was technical director and Jo Arthur and Victor Masondo took care of set design.

Props appeared simple yet clever and effective. A large wooden box acted as everything from a womb to a bus to a bed, among other things. Props also focused largely on various bits of clothing. An overly large dangling dress was Ms Mtshali?s mother.

Ms Mtshali instantly became a small child standing next to the dress. A little pair of white shoes never fit her feet. A series of headless mannequins dressed in various outfits signified the various children she took care of.

A bundled towel was her own baby, left at home with her sister. At one point she hung herself on the clothesline like a piece of washing.

Many of the songs and dances in the play were based on Ms Mtshali?s traditional Zulu culture. With an amazing range of voice and body language, Ms Mtshali transformed herself from a little girl sending messages to her parents through a passing bird, to an adult taking care of the oppressors? children.

One song, in English, to her young charges ended with, ?may God protect my children from you?.

There was no intermission during the performance, and yet the audience was kept riveted. There were many powerful moments during ?A Woman In Waiting?. One was when her mother?s employer caught a young Ms Mtshali using the house toilet. Her mother began to beg for her job, and Ms Mtshali?s view of her mother was forever altered. She saw her mother as a human with flaws for the first time.

?The toilet was so important it swallowed my mother in one go,? she said.

In fact, the toilet was so pivotal, that Ms Mtshali revisited it in the play at the end as a successful singer.

The show actually ended on a positive note with the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. In the play, Ms Mtshali recounted how, after a previous performance she met one of the young soldiers whose job it had been to harass and police non-Europeans. She said that she learned that others suffered also under Apartheid. As he cried on her shoulder, she forgave him.

What was interesting was that bits and pieces of her story sounded so familiar. The mechanics of oppression and colonialism are so universal. Instead of her own songs, she was taught ?Jack and Jill? in school. Being forced to use the toilet outside, being randomly dragged from your house at night because you lack a piece of paper to say you have the right to live there, hearing that ominous thumping on your door, waiting for your children to come home while the world burns, sound like so many other conflicts and situations in the world and throughout history.

At the end of the performance at City Hall, Ms Mtshali received a standing ovation. This reviewer later wanted to know more about her life, but found the gaps between the published biographical information, and the life story in the pl0ay, slightly frustrating.

Ms Mtshali?s life seems like an excellent subject for an actual written biography. She is now recognised as one of South Africa?s most celebrated artists. She has won many awards and was a finalist in the Tribute Achievers Awards 2002 in the category of African Excellence in Entertainment & Arts.

She has appeared on many television and theatre productions, and starred in the 1988 South African film ?Mapantsula?, which earned her a South African FNB Vita Nomination for Best Actress. She has recorded several albums including two with Hugh Masekela, and one with Miriam Makeba, ?Country Girl?. Her first solo album was ?Love is Like A Flower? and was followed by ?Today Tomorrow?. She is currently working on a fourth album.

The only complaint about ?A Woman In Waiting? would be the use of heavy clouds of smoke at the end of the performance. Using some kind of incense burner, Ms Mtshali filled the City Hall auditorium with sweet-smelling smoke.

This was actually thick smoke, and many people in the audience began to cough. It was also unclear why this technique was used.

Was it supposed to be some kind of cleansing? Given the intensity of the smoke, it might have been more effective during the scene where Soweto was burning.

Other than the smoke inhalation, ?A Woman In Waiting? was a highly thought-provoking performance. It would be nice to bring Ms Mtshali back to the Bermuda Festival to perform again in the future.

For more information and a teacher?s guide about ?A Woman and Waiting?, the actress and South African Apartheid go to http://www.artsalive.ca/pdf/eth/activities/awomaninwaiting.pdf.