When audiences first meet Nigerian immigrant Abasiama, the main character in the play “Sojourners,” she’s new to both marriage and America. Nearly 60 years later, Abasiama returns as the central character of “In Old Age,” the cycle’s eighth play, which finds her living “blissfully alone” at age 80 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Following the death of her second husband Disciple, she’s taken to repairing their failing house.
“Every time she patches the house, it’s like patching over something in her,” said playwright Mfoniso Udofia. “And that word ‘patch’ is different than ‘addition’; it’s different than taking out something and excavating. A patch is something that goes over a wound. So, for me, every time Abasiama is patching her house, I ask myself, ‘What in her is she patching?’”
After her daughter Toyoima hires a carpenter named Azell to help Abasiama in her home-renovation projects, the matriarch learns how to “choose her delight,” finally shedding the obligations of raising children and the struggles of her previous marriages. While Udofia’s first version of “In Old Age” followed the character as a “shell of herself,” the playwright said she rebuilt Abasiama as a “woman who grows,” granting her the agency to take control of her life.
Ebony Marshall-Oliver, who portrays Abasiama in ArtsEmerson and Front Porch Arts Collective’s latest production, likened the character’s situation to the doubt she imagines herself feeling after her son graduates high school, including worries about not having established enough for herself outside of domestic life. Marshall-Oliver said she went “digging” for herself, which then allowed her to dig for Abasiama.
“I want every woman to find their voice and finally say, ‘Enough. You are not going to run over me anymore, and I am going to, essentially, stand up for myself and say, no, this is what I want, and this is how I want it. And you can be okay with that or not, but I am okay with it,’” Marshall-Oliver said.
The Ufot Family Cycle stands as the product of nearly two decades of conceptualization, with Udofia’s experiences as a first-generation Nigerian-American as the undercurrent for Abasiama efforts to balance her African heritage and U.S. surroundings. With one play left, Udofia highlighted Abasiama’s blossoming connection with Azell and their future Black generations as “good treadway,” especially when there can be a diasporic “ocean of divide” between immigrants and African-Americans.
“In fact, what is Nigerian about her makes her able to be in America and root deeper,” Udofia said. “So she’s living in that hybrid state comfortably. I do think that’s something that is beautiful about America: You get all of these immigrants who are bringing all of who they are and remembering all of who they are.”
Though “In Old Age” and Abasiama Ufot are based onstage at Emerson’s Paramount Center until June 28, Udofia described the character as her “heartbeat” and a new touchstone of the American theater canon.
“I know that many of us haven’t seen a woman like her on a stage, and so many people know a woman like Abasiama,” Udofia said. “She is deserving of being shown [and] showcased for the creator of an American legacy that she is.”
Guests
- Mfoniso Udofia, playwright and creator of the Ufot Family Cycle, including “In Old Age”
- Ebony Marshall-Oliver, actress portraying Abasiama Ufot in “In Old Age”
