author: Steven Kirkpatrick
For an immigration story with a refreshing change of focus, you would do well to catch the Round House production of Mfoniso Udofia’s Sojourners, which kicks off their 2024-2025 season. It is also the first of a projected nine-part cycle about a family of Nigerians in the United States. Running through October 6th, “Sojourners” centers on a heroine who leaves a relatively privileged life in Nigeria in the late 1970s to study biology at Texas Southern University.
Like other members of her country’s “talented tenth,” Abasiama Ekpeyoung and her new husband, Ukpong (in an arranged marriage) come to America not as immigrants but as temporary visitors, as the play’s title suggests. Once their studies are complete, they will immediately return “to refashion their country into a world power.”
But the strange lure of America may not let it happen that way, and refreshingly, the central challenge in Udofia’s play is not racism; instead, Abasiama (Billie Krishawn) encounters injustice of another kind. In her job as a cashier at a gas station, she meets a young prostitute called Moxie (Renea S. Brown) who is covered with bruises from her violent johns. “People can do this?” Abasiama asks in horror. Even more confusing to a woman who speaks two languages perfectly is the discovery that Moxie can barely read.
The struggle between cultures also affects her marriage: studious Abasiama sings Nigerian songs to her pregnant belly and tries to make fufu, a cassava paste, out of Bisquick, while her husband Ukpong (Opa Adeyemo) would rather groove to Motown and taste American freedom. As the homesick Abasiama struggles for the first half of the play with the physical pain of her pregnancy, the demands of work and schooling, the isolation of being away from her family, and the uncertainty of her future, an unexpected bonding with others next drives the play’s second half. After Ukpong abandons her, Abasiama tentatively initiates friendships with Moxie and Disciple (Kambi Gathesha), another Nigerian student. By the end of Sojourners, Abasiama must make two overwhelming decisions. One is whether to stay with the unreliable but charming Ukpong or to attach herself to the deeply religious Disciple who believes their meeting is fated. The other decision is to decide what to do with the baby.
The playwright, herself a first-generation Nigerian-American, weaves the eventful plot with interest and unpredictability. The contrasting of the two men is interesting, partly because of the strong performances of Adeyemo as unreliable Ukpong, and of Gathesha as the strangely controlling but mystical Disciple. Moxie — an emotionally labile prostitute cycling through desperation, sass, strength and vulnerability— is expertly and memorably portrayed by Renea S. Brown, who delivers the most nuanced performance of the show. Billie Krishawn is also consistently effective as Abasiama, and the strongest moments of the evening land between the two women. Yet for all the intense emotional work of the performers, the play’s many monologues sometimes tilt the work from the naturalistic into the poetic.
Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, Round House’s production is largely impressive, with much attention paid to the emotional rhythms of the script, yet it is fair to mention that visually, the left and right side of the audience both get treated to actors’ backs far longer than might be optimal, while they speak upstage at length. The rotating set design by Paige Hathaway is effective, revolving us through apartments, gas station and hospital, and is matched by mood-appropriate lighting by Porsche McGovern.
As the first intended play of a long cycle, Sojourners may leave audiences with unanswered questions about the character’s fates, yet Round House has apparently commissioned another of the author’s cycle plays for future production, so the lineage of unlikely matriarch Abasiama may be visible for seasons to come. In the interim, strong acting and evocative themes make this first installment worth a visit.
