The run of “Her Portmanteau,” opening Thursday at the Central Square Theater, is Cambridge’s brief star turn in the Ufot Family Cycle – a nine-play saga playing out over two years around Greater Boston.
Though each play stands on its own, together they form a cohesive picture of the Ufot family that includes parents, children and grandchildren.
The plays were written by Mfonsio Udofia, who hails from Southbridge and graduated from Wellesley in 2006. She rarely saw stories about Africans and African Americans that resembled her family, so she endeavored to create a series of plays that would follow one Nigerian American family over time to engross audiences in an rich and emotional family cycle. It’s a scale of storytelling not seen since August Wilson’s American Century Cycle – 10 plays about the African American experience, each set in a different decade of the 20th century and most taking place in the same part of Pittsburgh.
Theaters and arts organizations around Greater Boston are producing Udofia’s cycle of plays in partnerships with universities, nonprofits and other social organizations and community activation partners. “Sojourners” and “The Grove” were produced by The Huntington this fall and winter; “runboyrun,” the third play in the cycle, was produced as an audio play by Next Chapter Podcasts in partnership with GBH.
“Her Portmanteau” is part four, and after its run the story picks up in July back in Boston.
Directed by Tasia A. Jones, “Her Portmanteau” asks what happens when one mother has two first-born daughters. It focuses on Abasiama Ufot (Patrice Jean-Baptiste), matriarch of the Ufot family, and two of her daughters: Iniabasi (Jade A. Guerra), who was raised by her first husband Ukpong in Nigeria, and Adiaha, her daughter with her second husband, Disciple. Though Iniabasi is technically Abasiama’s first-born, Disciple named their daughter Adiaha because it means “first born” in Ibibo. Out of resentment for Abasiama, Ukpong made it difficult for Iniabasi to follow her mother to the United States. With his death, Abasiama, with the help of Adiaha, has pulled together the needed paperwork and money.
“It’s the first time she’s seen her in 25 years, after having to make the most impossible decision a mother can make,” Jean-Baptiste said of Abasiama.
The previous plays add emotional layers to Udofia’s storytelling for theatergoers, and even for the actors involved.
In “Sojourners,” the cycle’s first play, audiences met a young, pregnant Abasiama and her husband Ukpong, who is lying to her and not working toward his degree as planned. It ends with her handing him their newborn daughter to take back to Nigeria while she stays in Houston to finish her degree.
In “The Grove,” Abasiama marries another Nigerian man named Disciple, moves to Massachusetts and has three children with him, starting with Adiaha. In it, Jean-Baptiste played one of its “shadows” – dead elders guiding Adiaha through her coming of age – and understudied Abasiama. When she auditioned for “Her Portmanteau,” she didn’t realize “how valuable” her experience in another one of the plays in the cycle would be.
“I have a real understanding of who Abasiama is as a character and empathy for the depth of the relationship she has with Disciple,” Jean-Baptiste said.
“Her Portmanteau” raises questions about the immigrant experience, including the collision between the excitement of being in a new place and the reality of being an outsider, Jean-Baptiste said. The women have to grapple with themselves and their relationships with each other to figure out how to reconcile their past and their future.
“These three women are carrying all of these disparate responsibilities and burdens and realities,” Jean-Baptiste said.
It’s a chamber play, with all action taking place inside Adiaha’s apartment in New York City. Abasiama is reckoning with her life choices while Adiaha and Iniabasi wrestle with which one of them she sees as the true eldest daughter.
“I’m hoping for audiences to experience the power and the depth of sacrifice for achieving love and unification,” Jean-Baptiste said.
Produced by Central Square Theater in collaboration with Front Porch Arts Collective and other organizations, “Her Portmanteau” runs through April 20. The Ufot Family Cycle continues in July with “Kufre n’ Quay” and is followed by four other plays, “The Ceremony,” “Lifted,” “In Old Age” and “Adia and Clora Snatch Joy,” that will be produced through summer 2026 by arts organizations including Boston Arts Academy, Boston University College of Fine Arts and ArtsEmerson.
“Her Portmanteau” from Thursday to April 20 at Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge. $25-$55 with pay-what-you-wish options available while supplies last.
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