Her Portmanteau

Play (2017)
by Mfoniso Udofia
Directed by Tasia A. Jones
Central Square Theater
Co-produced with Front Porch Arts Collective
Central Square, Cambridge, MA
March 27 – April 20, 2025

With Patrice Jean-Baptiste (Abasiama Ufot), Jade A. Guerra (Iniabasi Ekpeyong), Lorraine Victoria Kanyike (Adiaha Ufot)

In the first part of the Ufot Family Cycle, Sojourners, Abasiama (Patrice Jean-Baptiste) is married to Ukpong, the father of Iniabasi (Jade A. Guerra). Because of his less than stellar qualities as a husband, Ukpong and Abasiama split and he winds up back in Nigeria with their daughter, Iniabasi. Subsequently, Abasiama marries Disciple Ufot and has two children with him, the elder of whom is their daughter Adiaha (Lorraine Victoria Kanyike). Raised in Massachusetts but now living in New York, Adiaha is thirty and, with Abasiama visiting, welcomes Iniabasi to the United States for the first time in a very long time. Iniabasi comes bearing the portmanteau, the suitcase, that had been Abasiama’s years before and which calls forth rich and difficult memories. The three women exchange a great deal in a short time and embark on what becomes a challenging, but long needed, resolution.

Each piece of the Ufot family drama, thus far, contains a fragment of a saga, each filled with complexity and emotional challenge. Along the way, in addition to offering a good dose of the Nigerian cultural embrace, is a considerable amount of humor. Though the setting of the interpersonal challenges is never straightforward nor easy, the verve and gusto with which the characters address their problems becomes the substance of each of these small dramas.

In this piece of the saga, the big event is that Iniabasi, the long lost daughter from Abasiama’s first marriage, comes to the States, though it is not entirely clear what the arrangement for her coming is meant to be. Upon arrival, Iniabasi indicates that her mother, Abasiama, has led Iniabasi to believe that she will move in with Abasiama and Disciple, Abasiama’s second husband, at their large house in Worcester, Massachusetts. Instead Iniabasi finds that she will not be living with Abasiama and Disciple, but is, rather, being welcomed into her half-sister Adiaha’s small apartment in New York. It is not very clear, at the outset or later on when she finds out about where she will be staying, whether Iniabasi has the intention of residing at length in the United States or not. Her son is back in Nigeria, and a focal point of the narrative becomes Abasiama’s particular concern to develop a relationship with her grandson.

There is a lot of emotional material to process here. Iniabasi carries a lot of resentment because of her mother’s abandonment of her, though it seems that Abasiama had sought unsuccessfully to make contact with Iniabasi through various channels; there is, however, a good degree of haziness about this. According to the narrative, Adioha had met Iniabasi when Adioha was eight, but somehow – not clearly why – the two sides of the family lost contact such that Abasiama needed subsequently to search for Iniabasi. Nonetheless, Iniabasi has recently seemed to find Abasiama and Adioha well enough through Facebook, a method of discovery which seems a complete revelation to Abasiama.

As well, it seems that Abasiama is enough of a technophobe – or has been living in sufficient isolation from the world of contemporary technology – that discovering that something like Skype exists and that she can speak with her grandson that way is a complete revelation. Adioha is a pretty hip and with-it young woman, so it seems a bit odd that her mother, who is not at all old, would have been so ill informed about such possibilities. As it turns out, the revelation to Abasiama about Skype – a bit oddly and unexpectedly – becomes a focal point of the denouement.

A lot gets made about this unexpected distance between the two sides of the family – between Iniabasi and her mother and half-sister – even though one is not sure why, given all of the available tools of technology and the relative hipness and awareness of the thirty year old Adioha. But the focus of the drama relies on this distancing and the various forms of tension among the characters that result from it. Iniabasi is a character relatively unknown to her half-sister, but the narrative might have chosen to explore more nuanced tensions from family history rather than rely on the more obvious set up of technological limitation to account for the alienation.

There is a lot of Nigerian dialogue in this and in the other Ufot plays. It sounds beautiful and is great to have as a cultural embellishment to this saga, but it would be nice to get some translations. In some of the plays – perhaps all – one is very subtly offered the possibility of tuning into a concurrent translation from one’s cell phone. Given the problems of having one’s phone on during a theatrical performance, it would have made more sense to have screens with supertitles available. Commonly done in other theatrical performances with technology readilysly available, this would have made a significant enhancement to these productions.

The three actresses give decent performances and there are some significant and emotionally redolent scenes among each of the pairs of the three. Lorraine Victoria Kanyike’s performance as Adiaha is particularly striking – she has spunk, ferocity, humor and a good range which gives her character a persuasive depth.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)