Sojourners

Play (2016)
by Mfoniso Udofia
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
Huntington Theatre Company
Huntington Theater
Symphony Hall area, Boston

With Abigail C. Onwunali (Abasiama), Nome SiDone (Ukpong), Joshua Olumide (Disciple), Asha Basha Duniani (Moxie)

The setting is Houston, Texas in 1978. Abasiama (Abigail C. Onwunali), a Nigerian national in the United States, is hard-working and pregnant and lives with her husband, Ukpong (Nome SiDone), another Nigerian, who is considerably less hard-working. He’s supposed to be in school but indications are that he’s more interested in drinking and keeping up with Motown music. At her job at a small convenience store at a fueling station, Abasiama encounters two people who figure strongly in her life and destiny. Moxie (Asha Basha Duniani) is a black American prostitute who wants to apply for a job at Abasiama’s store. Abasiama encourages her to do so, and gradually they develop a friendship. As well, Disciple (Joshua Olumide), a writer and another Nigerian, happens by the gas station and meets Abasiama. He’s taken with her and when, suddenly, Abasiama’s water breaks and she has to go to the hospital, Disciple helps her get there and begins to pay her visits. So does Moxie, and the relationships get somewhat intense. Moxie seeks Abasiama’s attentions, and so does Disciple. Ukpong’s presence remains something of a mystery, but he does show up finally and he and Abasiama have a telling and consequential interaction that has significant implications for their nuclear family and for their family in Nigeria.

This play is the first part of a nine play cycle – dubbed the Ufot Family Cycle – written by Mfoniso Udofia and scheduled in toto for production at the Huntington and at various other Boston area theaters throughout the coming year.

Three of the main characters in Sojourners speak in beautifully Nigerian-accented English, and in some Nigerian itself, which lends the play a lovely lilt and linguistic texture. I did have some trouble making out quite a bit of the dialogue, but managed, nevertheless, to get the general sense of the plot. The plot, such as it is, does not have a great deal to it – the main character is going to have a baby, her husband is not the most responsible and present person in the world, and she gets a lot of attention from the two characters who wander into the gas station where she works. How, in the end, it works out with the baby, the husband and these two characters forms the substance of the narrative.

The play is not short and the dialogue does goes on somewhat relentlessly. Though I was told the play was about two hours and twenty minutes with intermission it seemed to actually be closer to three hours. Nonetheless, The audience on opening night seemed thrilled and energized by the performance and the production.

Indeed there is power and persuasiveness in the character of Abasiama and her portrayal by Abigail C. Onwunali and a resilient determination put forward by Joshua Oluumide’s portrayal of Disciple. In the role of Moxie, a flamboyant character who seeks greater seriousness through her association with Abasiama, Asha Basha Duniani gives it her histrionic all. And though not omnipresent, Nome SiDone as Ukpong characterizes the less than omnipresent husband with a sufficient amount of chaotic gusto.

There is a big blowup between Moxie and Disciple around Abasiama’s attentions that does not make too much sense, and the implications are left hanging, which is odd for such a long play with not too much complexity in the plot. As well, the play concludes with a decision about filial destinies that, though dramatic, poignant and significant, goes largely unexplained.

The set by Jason Ardizzone-West is quite elaborate and has an arrangement of suspended strings that serve as interesting transitional elements. Some of the transitions of the sets themselves are done quite interestingly as well.

Overall: A rudimentary but heartfelt story about duty, family, abandonment, and the happenstance intersection of lives while in America.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)