David Hurst takes a look at The Homecoming Queen:
Presented last summer in a workshop by New York Stage and Film & Vassar at the Powerhouse Theater, Ngozi Anyanwu's The Homecoming Queen is now receiving its world premiere production at the Atlantic Theater Company's Stage 2. An emotionally charged play about a Nigerian woman, Kelechi, played with raw strength by Mfoniso Udofia, forced to deal with a turbulent past when she returns home for the first time in fifteen years to care for her aging father, The Homecoming Queen is a powerful exploration of a familiar story. Contrary to Thomas Wolfe, Kelechi can and does go home again, but the emotional baggage she finds waiting for her in Nigeria throws her life into chaos and is the basis for the structural conflict in Anyanwu's deeply felt play. . . . |