The Hue Festival: Akosua Goes Home – The Hansberry Project @ Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (Seattle – Central District)

By Nikki Yeboah
Directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton

It is 10 days before Akosua goes home to Ghana, and her wonderful, amazing daughter, Nikki has decided to do a series of interviews with her reflecting on her 30 years in Canada. As the interviews progress, it becomes evident that though the interviews are about Akosua, her memories implicate every member of the family. What begins as an oral history transforms into a meditation on how families remember, because memories are shared and also contested. In this two-person documentary play, Akosua is played by her two daughters, Nikki and Afrika. As they tell their mother’s story they also wrestle with their own memories of the past, unpack how their family’s history continues to shape their present, and release their own attachments to their narratives. The two women also gain an understanding of their mother’s choices; choices that went on to have deep and lasting impacts on their lives.

Part of The Hue Festival: A multi-night event of new play readings by BIPOC women writers, created with the mission to be a platform that holds space for new plays by women playwrights of color and provides these new works with an opportunity to live and breathe before a community of theater lovers while also giving playwrights the opportunity to hear their work out loud for future development. Presented May 22-25 by Brown Soul Productions, The Hansberry Project, and Seattle Public Theater, in partnership with Langston.

Tickets are pay-what-you-choose for all, available here.