THE HOMECOMING QUEEN by Ngozi Anyanwu starring Mfoniso Udofia is a Powerful and Regal Play

Playwright Ngozi Anyanwu is currently commissioned by both the Atlantic Theater Co. and The Old Globe.  Both playhouses are fortunate to have the talented playwright Anyanwu's works to present.  Her previous play "Good Grief" (2016) won the Inaugural CTG/Humanitas Playwrighting Award.  THE HOMECOMING QUEEN hones in on the return home of Kelechi (Mfoniso Udofia, in a tour-de force performance) to her native Nigeria after a 15 year hiatus in America.  During her 15 years abroad she has become a successful best selling author.  With Kelechi acclaim & financial success she has been supporting her papa (Oberon Adjepong) a tribal king living in a manner befitting royalty.  Kelechi has become Americanized in her time abroad.  She appears the ugly American with resentment & disrespect towards the locals & her elderly, ill papa.  Kelechi shows a general disdain for being back in Nigeria and the "house girl" Beatric is the buttress of much of Kelechi's demands & irritations.  The One Act play is cleverly staged on a small sparse set surrounded on two sides by the audience.  Amongst the audience are 4 women of varying ages dressed in native African clothes & headgear who stay in character onstage & off; always singing & doing chores all the while with a smile and song to lighten their load.  These friendly women are endearing except to Kelechi who seems to look down upon them.  The spare set has a staircase leading to a 2nd floor of her father's home.  The upper level is offstage but the hierarchy & snobbery of looking down upon others doesn't go unnoticed.  The chorus anchors the play in present day Nigeria with its dress & dialect.  These women represent a far cry from the sophisticated, modern & superior Kelechi having lived in the US.  The brilliance of Anyanwu's writing & the acting talents of its ensemble cast (led by a magnificient Udofia) is the seamless flashbacks to Kelechi's childhood in Nigeria with her virile father & young male friend Obina.  The crafty non-linear storytelling is convincing, the revelatory events & repercussions are powerfully unleashed.  Kelechi returns home as a writer of renown & success & a women under duress.  Her anxieties (treated by prescribed medications) intensify.  Her reasons for her leaving & returning to her regal father are ambigious until they are made shockingly clear.  THE HOMECOMING QUEEN covers many prominent, prescient subjects.   The women's chorus sings in unison a joyous "You are welcome".  But the underlying secrets & pain in spite of this repeated refrain don't overshadow the secrets & tragedies intended to stay buried deep within a sorrowful well of emotion.  Anyanwu's sovereign play weigh heavily upon the heart.  There is redemption and much to celebrate in this intelligent & stirring play.  "Commitment, Perseverance, Knowledge, Dedication, Common Sense" 5 memes of Anyanwu's extraordinary play.