In the opening scene of “Her Portmanteau,” playwright Mfoniso Udofia‘s riveting family drama now at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater, we meet Iniabasi Ekpeyong (Eunice Woods) outside of JFK Airport on a cold, wind-whipped morning. After nearly 24 hours of flying, this 36-year-old Nigerian woman stands by a bank of grafittied pay phones, shivering and anxious, a single red suitcase gripped tight in her hand.
Along with Iniabasi, you hear the rush of traffic, the faint chatter of unseen passersby, all the disorienting din of an foreign city. And deep in the mix of sound designer Jake Rodriguez’s aural ambiance, slipping in and out of perceptibility, is the faint music of a single cello. Lovely, plaintive and elusive, it is a line of beauty, that begs you to lean forward and pay close attention.
When an unfamiliar young woman, Adiaha (Aneisa Hicks) arrives to pick up Iniabasi, their initial dialogue—in the bubbling Ibibio language that is woven througout the play—has a similar effect, enticing you to prick up your ears and tune in your interpretive skills to deduce the context of their relationship.
Soon enough, that context becomes clearer. But there is still much interpretation to be done, by both characters and audience, as the unfamiliar and familiar begin to merge: Iniabasi, raised in Nigeria, and Adiaha, raised in Massachusetts, are half-sisters. They have met only once before, as children.
On David Israel Reynoso’s documentary-perfect set of Adiaha’s modest, personality-infused Inwood apartment (colorful abstract paintings; chunky scented candles; botanical prints on the drapes, a pillow, a kitchen potholder), these two women—at once close and distant—are joined by Abasamia (Kimberly Scott) their mother-in-common. Resentments flare. Incriminations fly. There is talk of abandonment, alienation and regret.
When Abasamia cannot manage the internal clash of her simultaneous joy, guilt, shame and anxiety, she hums aloud, as if sequestering herself in a sound more pleasurable than her daughters’ arguing with each other and with her.
Under the sensitive direction of Victor Malana Maog, all three actresses do powerful work. Woods teeters precariously between self-pity and self-righteousness, with occasional glints of hope. Hicks has a sweet, spiky American straightforwardness, alternately dispensing zingers and tenderness to her sister and mother. And Scott, with her elastic facial expressions and deep bruise of a voice poignantly conveys the near-impossible choices life has placed in this matriarch’s path—and the persistent residual pain those choices have embedded within her.
Udofia, herself a first-generation Nigerian-American (and an M.F.A. graduate of A.C.T.), incorporates passages of Ibibio dialogue, discussions about the customs of family life in rural Nigeria, and powerful stories about the allure, opportunities and disappointments of immigrating to the United States into “Her Portmanteau.” But the sibling rivalries, maternal determination, and overarching solidarity of this particular clan have universal resonance. Just as the three characters in this story all come to recognize facets of themselves in each other, you will discover reflections of your family in theirs.
Toward the end of “Her Portmanteau,” Iniabasi realizes that the tune her mother hums to disconnect from the present moment is a melody her father sang to her as a small child. Given an unfamiliar situation, initially disconcerting and hard to relate to, she opens her mind and listens closely. A meaningful music reveals itself.
Originally published in the Bay Area Reporter
