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Read reviews for Lincoln Center Theater’s world premiere production of the new LCT3 play creation stories and all the important importants, written by Nigerian American playwright Mfoniso Udofia.
Directed by Tamila Woodard, creation stories and all the important importants stars Savannah Commodore as ‘little girl/the uncome,’ Donnetta Lavinia Grays as ‘the raffia/alexa/mr. cornell,’ and Abigail C. Onwunali as ‘thegrownwoman,’ with Justyce Taylor rounding out the cast as understudy.
The creative team for the play includes Jason Ardizzone-West (Scenic Design), Sarafina Bush (Costume Design), Alan C. Edwards (Lighting Design), Bailey Trierweiler & UptownWorks (Sound Design), Katherine Freer (Projection Design), Cassie J. Williams (Hair & Wig Design), Adesola Osakalumi (Movement Director), and The Telsey Office (Casting). Siena Yusi serves as the Stage Manager.
Women give life. And life asks so much in return. Nigerian playwright Mfoniso Udofia makes her LCT3 debut with the world premiere of creation stories and all the important importants, an intimate, mythic new play from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary theater, with direction by Tamilla Woodard.
Centering on a midlife Black woman pulled between her many selves-child, future daughter, artist, possible mother-the play pulses with longing as its heroine races against the clock and the limits of her own body. Moving across time and space, from ancestor to AI, from dream cycle to IVF cycle, through music and ritual, Udofia weaves her own surprising folktale on the cost of creation and the impossible work of becoming.
Sara Holdren, Vulture : In the end, creation stories feels a bit like an internal pep talk for which an audience didn’t necessarily need to be present. It may touch on things that can make viewers feel seen, but its central concern is performing a kind of therapy for its own protagonist — and thus, really, for its own writer. On the third full page of notes at the top of her script, before the play itself begins, Udofia writes: “this play came from a commission where i was asked to write exactly what i wanted. this play is what kept coming out of me… even when i did not want to write it. it nearly broke me. my brain. my heart. my body. oh the pain of this. oh the patience of this.”
Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Stretches of Udofia’s complex, often lyrical, modern-day drama escaped me entirely. Whether such befuddlement stems from the limits of my boomer background or to Udofia’s magical dramaturgy, or possibly both, it is obvious much care and craft have gone into both the play and its glossy LCT3 production at the Claire Tow Theater.
Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: For her new work, creation stories and all the important importants. Udofia turns her gaze inward — creating a stylized autofiction centered on a middle-aged Nigerian-American playwright and theater professor who finds herself struggling with two types of creation: writing a new work that doesn’t spring from some other, recognizable texts and having a child of her own.
Caroline Cao, New York Theatre Guide: “I can be good to you,” a woman (Abigail C. Onwunali) tells her belly, which she just self-injected for an IVF procedure in hopes of a healthy pregnancy. But in Mfoniso Udofia’s creation stories and all the important importants, life will break down the body and brain of this writer, professor,e and aspiring mom. Textually, it’s an inventive play that explores the expansiveness of imagination with Nigerian mythic elements. But visually, Lincoln Center Theater’s production, under director Tamilla Woodard, is a little suffocated in the Claire Tow Theater.
Average Rating: 57.5%
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