Lifted

By Mfoniso Udofia

Directed by Josiah Davis

Play #7 in the Ufot Family Cycle

March 24-28: In-process Presentations at Maso Studio at Huntington Theater

March 29: Alumnae Hall Auditorium, Wellesley College

Back in September, when I attended Ufot Family Cycle play #6, The Ceremony, I enjoyed a brief conversation with playwright Mfoniso Udofia, during which she told me plays #8 and 9 were in good shape, but #7 was still very much in progress. I don’t know how that factors into the unique way this play is being unveiled, but the process—and results—of creating Lifted is an exciting one.

Earlier this month, the cast held three staged readings at The Footlight Club in Jamaica Plain. This week, there will be a series of presentations at Maso Studio at The Huntington. Then, on Sunday evening March 29, there will be a single performance of the play at Wellesley College. And at this moment, that’s all there is, folks!

I had the great good fortune to attend the first Footlight Club presentation, where I fell under the spell of this captivating play. Given that it was a staged reading, the playwright and director offered some opening comments. The six-person cast had been rehearsing about three weeks, though they received new script pages—up to 60—every day. The play will ultimately include three acts, though only the first two were being presented that night. The cast had scripts on hand, but they also moved, creating dependence at arm’s length.

Arm’s length is a key aspect of this play in which three actors portray the same character simultaneously, physically tethered by a kind of gelatinous thread. Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Innocent), Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Front-Facing) and Dr. Toyoima Ufot (Wrath) are different aspects of the same person. The conceit works brilliantly as a medium to illustrate coincident internal conflicts, the kind that rage within us all. It’s particularly effective because the play’s plot revolves around whether Harvard professor Dr. Ufot plagiarized research done by her now-dead father. Parallels to the plight of Claudine Gay abound, cossetted in so much academic jargon that, if delivered by one actor would be a marble-mouth of mush, but when distributed among three aspects of the same person, becomes wonderful banter.

Even in progress, two aspects of Lifted elevate it beyond other plays in the cycle. First, it’s funny. Very funny. Second, it’s got song. Beautiful song, exquisitely delivered. Perhaps this is the luxury of second-generation immigrants, that they can afford to laugh and to sing. Though I think it reflects a particular kinship of this play to its author. Lifted is complex yet so loving.

And yet, like every play in this immigrant cycle, the bittersweet emotion of the torn heart permeates the whole. Abasiama, the Ufot matriarch, encapsulates this in her haunting line, “One should not reside in a place that shatters one’s soul.” Toyoima encounters so much obstruction in her path towards integrity; America shatters her soul. Yet wasn’t it shattered souls, or shattered bellies, or shattered bodies, that drove the Ufot’s out of Nigeria in the first place? Where in this world can these wandering souls be fulfilled?

The play shifts quite a bit in time, though I did not find it confusing. However, there was one place where the flow stumbled. Mid-way through Act Two time shifts way back, to the 1990’s, when Toyoima is a singular personality, aged four, then seven, then twelve, sixteen, twenty-two. The backstory is important, but at the script iteration I attended, this sequence was too long, too diffuse for what needs to be conveyed. Hopefully, Ms. Udofio will tighten this as the play evolves. Especially as a third act is planned, and the performance I attended was already long.

In acts one and two, the title Lifted refers to taking others’ words as your own. But I yearn for lifted’s higher meaning, and am confident that Ms. Ufonsio will deliver that in act three, when, according to the talk-back discussion. Toyoima will journey back to Nigeria and find meaning and purpose denied her in the United States. I’m excited to see how that comes to be.