The Huntington’s production of “Sojourners” in October 2024 marked the start of the two-year, citywide production of Mfoniso Udofia’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle.

Now, in the world premiere of the second play in the cycle, the Nigerian American family’s story continues in “The Grove.” The play is set 31 years after the first, and is centered on Ufot matriarch Abasiama’s older daughter, Adiaha, and her story of finding herself while also making her family proud.

Udofia, who is also Nigerian American, drew on her own experiences — and the experiences of families like hers — for the entire cycle, though she says nothing is directly inspired by her life. For Udofia, the similarities between her and Adiaha lie in the central themes addressed in her work.

“The questions that Adiaha is asking in ‘The Grove’ are questions that were extraordinarily important for me to figure out,” Udofia said on GBH’s Under the Radar. “I wrote that play in order to see if I could figure out how I, Mfoniso, navigated the question of, ‘What is it to self-identify when you are from a collectivist culture? Where does ‘I’ stand when you have been taught so much to privilege the ‘we’? I was in the middle of figuring out how to be my total self. How can I be the Black woman? I am the African woman. I am the queer woman. I am all of those things at one time.”

For actress Abigail C. Onwunali, the experience of performing as Adiaha in “The Grove” is especially intriguing, as she played Abasiama in “Sojourners.”

“Abasiama reminds me very much so of my mother. And there’s a bit of like, ‘I understand this woman, because I’ve seen this woman, and there have been many aunties that I’ve seen in this place and in this life, and what is it like to play a younger version of that?’” she said. “And then going into Adiaha, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m an Adiaha. I’m a first daughter, too, and this is in 2009 and I know what we were playing in 2009, and I know what the vibes are like.’ This is so close. There’s so many similarities that we have. It’s trippy, but I think it’s also exciting to be able to take on that challenge.”

Aside from the recurring characters at the center of the cycle, an additional detail that is present throughout both “Sojourners” and “The Grove” is the use of the Nigerian language Ibibio, which is not translated for the audience in either play. It is also more prevalent in “The Grove,” as the play features a group of ancestor characters called the shadows. Udofia said having the shadows speak Ibibio was imperative for authenticity and to showcase the richness of indigenous African languages, which are often not heard onstage.

“It was so important for me to not explain, to not water down and to hold at the center what that language is, and to offer that as a music that you can be within and know that you will understand something — if not all — and trust the audience could do that,” Udofia said.

“The Grove” is onstage at the Huntington Theatre until March 9. For more information, visit https://huntingtontheatre.org/

Guests

  • Mfoniso Udofia , award-winning playwright and the creator of the Ufot Family Cycle.
  • Abigail C. Onwunali, actress playing Adiaha, the Ufot’s oldest daughter, in “The Grove.”