‘Sojourners’ artfully launches Ufot Family Cycle

‘By Rich Fahey

BOSTON – The story begins. And what a way to start.

The Ufot Family Cycle, a nine-play initiative of works by playwright Mfonsio Udofia, conceived by The Huntington’s artistic director, Lorraine Greco, is off and running.

Huntington has taken the lead with the first two plays in the cycle. “Sojourners,” now onstage at the Huntington Theatre, is superbly directed by Dawn M. Simmons. The other eight plays will also follow three generations of a Nigerian-American family who emigrated to the United States. “The Grove,” the second play in the cycle, will be presented starting Feb. 7 in the Calderwood Pavilion of the Boston Center for the Arts.

Greco produced three of Udofia’s works while at the Magic Theater in San Francisco before joining The Huntington in 2022.

Over the next two years, until July 2026, the remaining seven plays will be performed all across Greater Boston at a large variety of venues, with a lengthy list of partners, including theaters, non-profit groups and the City of Boston’s arts and cultural agency.

Five of the plays will be premieres and there will be pop-up performances of “Sojourners” at four venues.

If “Sojourners” – which debuted in 2013 and also had an off-Broadway run — is any indication of what is to come, theater-goers are in for a treat.  The play is set in Houston in 1978, a few years after changes in immigration laws in this country allowed the Nigerian diaspora to come to the U.S.

Graduate student Abasiama Ekpeyong (Abigail C. Onwunali)  is studying at an American university, and she lives with her husband Ukpong (Nome DiSone), also a student, in a small apartment. Ukbong, a pleasant sort, has embraced the freedoms America offers, such as driving with friends for days at a time, drinking, listening to music, and going to rallies and talking about politics and free love. Whenever possible, he tries to look as if he is serious about his studies, but a letter found under a couch in the apartment gives him away.

Meanwhile, Abasiama, in her eighth month of pregnancy, is still working an overnight shift at a convenience store gas station where she nightly battles nausea, fatigue and other pregnancy-related issues.

Onwunali as Abasimia is a powerhouse who commands the stage even while the number of obstacles she confronts grow larger and more numerous.

One night at the gas station, she befriends a young woman named Moxie (Asha Basha Duniani), who lives and works on the streets but is desperately looking for a way out, possibly by working alongside Abasiama at the gas station, if she can only finish the paperwork. Duniani’s Moxie doesn’t quite know where she’s going, but she injects cosmic comic energy into every scene she’s in.

Meanwhile, Ukpong disappears before his wife gives birth, a birth which happens as a Nigerian-American writer named Disciple (Joshua Olumide) comes to the station seeking gas for his stalled vehicle just as Abasimia goes into labor.

Seeing no husband in the picture, he attaches himself to Abasimia’s bedside after the child’s birth.  But his attitudes – especially towards women and their place in society — may not jibe with how Abasiama sees her future in America.

When Ukpong returns there will be a confrontation, and decisions will be made.

Simmons’ casting could not be better, and under her direction the characters and their situations ring true.  

Udofia is a first generation Nigerian-American whose parents immigrated to Texas from Nigeria in the 1970s, had children, and then moved to the Boston area because of the educational opportunities available. Udofia’s mother was a biologist, and her father was a scholar of West African studies.

Udofia grew up in Southbridge and graduated from Wellesley College, where she met the late August Wilson backstage at The Huntington after a performance of his “Gem of the Ocean,” and the seed was planted for the future. It was The Huntington and Greco that first saw the potential for something groundbreaking alongside the lines of Wlson’s iconic “Century Cycle.”

Udofia worked as an actor before moving into writing as a playwright and writer for television, earning an Emmy nomination.

In “Sojourners,” the playwright artfully and lovingly explores the immigrant experience, and the hopes and dreams of those who take the plunge, risking everything in the process.

The Huntington production of “Sojourners.” Written by Mfonsio Udofia. Directed by Dawn M. Simmons. At the Huntington Theatre through Dec. 1 .For more information on the entire Ufot Family Cycle schedule, go to huntingtontheatre.org.