Nigerian Nobel Prize Winner’s 1958 Play, ‘The Swamp Dwellers,’ Comes to Life at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience

Wole Soyinka’s “The Swamp Dwellers” unfolds nearly seven decades ago, in a place most Americans have never visited: a village in the swamps of the Nigerian Delta. Mr. Soyinka, a native of that country whose plays and poetry have earned him many honors, including a Nobel Prize, wrote this one-act play back in 1958, while a student at the University of Leeds.Yet the themes that inform “Swamp Dwellers,” of family, faith, and tradition — and the endless opportunities they pose for conflict, corruption, and betrayal — are timeless and universal, and they’re made beautifully accessible both in Mr. Soyinka’s text and in a new production directed by Awoye Timpo at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience.The play, which clocks in at just 70 minutes here, has a parable-like quality: A poor couple, Alu and Makuri, await the return of a prodigal son, Igwezu, following eight months in the city, where like many in his generation he sought upward mobility. We learn that Igwezu’s twin brother, Awuchike, who never appears, made the same trip a decade ago and has not been in contact with his parents; his mother fears he could be dead. “Awuchike was drowned,” Alu insists, making one of many references in the play to the surrounding swamps, and to the Serpent who supposedly lurks beneath them. That mythical creature inspires such awe and dread in the villagers that they bestow gifts on a local priest, Kadiye, enabling him to live grandly as he ensures protection. Ato Blankson-Wood and Leon Addison Brown in ‘The Swamp Dwellers.’ Hollis KingBefore Igwezu arrives at his parents’ humble dwelling — designed by Jason Ardizzone-West, with a vivid authenticity that’s shared by Qween Jean’s costumes — we meet both Kadiye and a man who quickly emerges as his foil: a blind beggar who has traveled from up north, hoping to be given, as he puts it, “a little of what land is useless to the people.”A pious Muslim, the beggar naturally cannot see Kadiye when he enters the hut but immediately senses the priest’s decadence. “Is he fat, master?” the beggar asks Igwezu once the latter has arrived and, sensing the young man’s superior moral character, the beggar has asked to be his bondsman, working the land for his benefit. That goal will not be easy, we discover, as revelations pour forth about Igwezu’s time in the city and troubles in the village, which has been beset by floods. Under Ms. Timpo’s vigorous but sensitive guidance, the players all mine the poignance, humor, and wisdom with which Mr. Soyinka, now 90, charted their intersecting paths.Ato Blankson-Wood, a rising Broadway star — he won a Tony nomination for 2019’s “Slave Play,” and was among a few actors who managed to inject some tangible humanity into last season’s tawdry revival of “Cabaret” — brings a sharp, slow-burning intensity to Igwezu. In a segment that’s both suspenseful and funny, he gets to channel Sweeney Todd by shaving Kadiye’s beard.Chiké Okonkwo’s Kadiye is suitably slick, with an edge of menace that becomes more pronounced toward the end, while Joshua Echebiri exudes a gentle dignity as the beggar. Leon Addison Brown and Jenny Jules lend warmth as, respectively, Makuri and Alu, whose early squabbles and jokes evoke the abiding affection that sustains loving couples in any culture.What may be most striking about “The Swamp Dwellers,” in fact, is how familiar its characters, created long ago and positioned far away, seem throughout. Certainly, for anyone unacquainted with Mr. Soyinka’s work, this superb production encourages a deeper dive while he’s still around to enjoy the attention.

Nigerian Nobel Prize Winner’s 1958 Play, ‘The Swamp Dwellers,’ Comes to Life at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience

More from the New York Sun

Redistricting Wars Kicked Off By Trump Poised To Linger Well Into 2028 Election Cycle

Federal Judge Tosses Suit Claiming Boneless Chicken Wings Are Not Wings

Mardi Gras Musical Festivities Continue to Transcend Geography and Genre

More from the New York Sun

Redistricting Wars Kicked Off By Trump Poised To Linger Well Into 2028 Election Cycle

Federal Judge Tosses Suit Claiming Boneless Chicken Wings Are Not Wings

Mardi Gras Musical Festivities Continue to Transcend Geography and Genre

Republicans Fall Just Shy of Trump’s Margin in Georgia State Senate Special Election

Anti-ICE Activists, Defying Federal Authorities, Take the Law Into Their Own Hands

Tucker Carlson Ignores Israeli Christian Leader’s Invitation to See His ‘Thriving’ Community ‘With His Own Eyes’

Putin Defines Success Down as the Fifth Year Nears of His War To Subdue Ukraine

Minnesota Leaders, Ignoring Billions in Losses From Welfare Fraud, Demand Reimbursement for Those Stemming From DHS Enforcement Surge