Sojourners & Her Portmanteau

B-

New York Theatre Workshop, in association with The Playwrights Realm, is presenting in repertory two plays from Mfoniso Udofia’s projected nine-play cycle about the Nigerian diaspora. 

The first play, Sojourners, presented barely a year ago by The Playwrights Realm, is set in Houston in the late 70’s. Chinasa Ogbuagu (The Qualms) plays Abasiama Ekpeyoung, a diligent biology student at Texas Southern who works all night as cashier at a gas station even though she is eight months pregnant. Her slacker husband Ukpong Ekpeyoung (Hubert Point-du Jour, The Model Apartment) is allegedly studying economics there too, but he has been seduced by American ways, is growing restless in their arranged marriage, and repeatedly disappears for days. Moxie Wilis (Lakisha Michelle May, Everybody) is a barely literate young prostitute who turns up at the gas station to apply for a job that will get her out of the life. Disciple Ufot (Chinaza Uche) is a lonely, devout Nigerian student who also turns up at the gas station and thinks that meeting Abasiama is a sign of divine intervention. Moxie and Disciple vie for Abasiama’s attention. When the baby arrives, Abasiama is faced with difficult choices about her future. The play has some narrative bumps, but is carried along by the excellent acting. I did feel that the ending was so underwritten that its import might be missed.

Her Portmanteau, which takes place in New York 30 years later, reveals some of the consequences of her decision. Iniabasi Ekpeyoung (Adapero Oduve), a woman of about 30, arrives at JFK and discovers that her mother Abasiama Ufot (Jenny Jules, The Crucible), who was supposed to pick her up and take her home to Massachusetts, is not there. Instead she has sent her daughter Adiagha Ufot (Chinasa Ogbuagu again) to get her and take her to her own Manhattan apartment. For the rest of the play the three women strive to work through the complexities of their relationship to find some kind of closure. Once again the acting is superb and goes a long way to mitigate the play’s slow pacing, narrative infelicities and repetitiveness. 

The set design by Jason Sherwood has a frame resembling a large double-hung window, but with bright lights in it, overhanging the stage. Its two panes are used for projections. The stage turntable was quite effective until it broke down shortly before the end of the second play. Loren Shaw’s costumes befit the characters well. Director Ed Sylvander Iskandar (The Mysteries and These Seven Sicknesses at The Flea) keeps the actors going at full throttle too much of the time.

On weekends both plays are presented in one day. It doesn’t really matter in which order you see them. I saw the “second” play in time first, which made it interesting while watching the “first” play to look for clues to how things had reached that point. Both plays have flaws, but the strong performances make them worth a visit.

The running time for Her Portmanteau is one hour 45 minutes with no intermission. The length for Sojuourners is two hours 30 minutes including intermission.

Two Class Acts *** B-

For the final offering at its White Street home before moving to a new theater four blocks south, The Flea is presenting a pair of one-act plays by A.R. Gurney. This is fitting because Gurney has written several plays for them over the last several years and will have one of the performing spaces in the new building named for him. The two plays are separately ticketed, but it is advisable to see them back to back on the same evening. (The Flea's ticket prices are so low that the cost ot the two plays together is less than one play at most theaters.) Both deal with college faculty who teach Greek literature. 

In Squash, which we must deduce is set in the 1970’s, professor Dan Proctor (Dan Amboyer) likes to unwind with a game of squash after work. One day he is accosted in the locker room by a student, Gerald Caskey (Rodney Richardson), who allegedly is there to turn in a term paper early. He then admits that he also wanted to see Dan naked. (Yes, there’s brief non-frontal male nudity and Dan’s body is worthy of a Praxiteles.) Gerald later comes to Dan’s office to complain about the low grade on his term paper and find out whether it was because of their locker room encounter. Meanwhile Dan’s wife Becky (Nicole Lowrance) begrudges the time Dan spends on squash rather than at home and wishes he would do more to improve his chances of getting tenure. Implausibly Dan goes to a bar recommended by Gerald, unaware that it is a gay bar. He comes to question his own sexuality and eventually approaches Gerald. However Gerald has made discoveries of his own.

For Ajax, the smaller downstairs theater has been converted to a classroom with student tables and a lectern. Each student table has a syllabus for “Intro to Classic Greek Drama” on it. Meg Tucker (Olivia Jampol, who alternates with Rachel Lin) is a failed actress who is filling in as an adjunct instructor for a professor on sabbatical. Her lesson plan is disrupted by the late arrival of Adam Feldman (Chris Tabet, who alternates with Ben Lorenz), an enthusiastic but willful student who insists on writing an adaptation of Sophocles’s Ajax instead of a term paper on Aeschylus. His retelling of the story through the prism of PTSD is a big success when it is staged at a small venue on campus. Adam has persuaded the reluctant Meg to play the role of mistress to his Ajax. The university decides to stage Adam’s play at their main theater to promote their image. At this point the play goes seriously off the rails. Adam keeps revising the play and eventually turns it into an allegory about the Israelis and the Palestinians. The consequences are predictable. In a “happy” ending, we learn that the play will find a home at an adventurous New York theater called The Flea. 

Both plays starts promisingly, but end disappointingly. The acting runs from fair to good, with Amboyer standing out. The immersive sets by Jason Sherwood are excellent. In Squash, the long rectangular space is divided into four square playing areas for the locker room, dining room, office and bar, with two rows of seats facing each other along the long walls. The costumes by Sky Switser are appropriate to the characters. Stafford Arrima’s fluid direction is admirable.

Neither play is top-drawer Gurney, but, for me at least, even second-drawer Gurney is enjoyable. Running time for the two plays together: two hours total, including the time between plays.