The Swamp Dwellers
March 30 - April 20
Theatre for a New Audience proudly presents the Off-Broadway premiere of this 1958 masterwork. Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka finds stunning universal resonance in a quietly tragic tale steeped in Yoruba myth and lore and set in a rustic hut in the Niger Delta. An aging Nigerian couple living in a swamp region is visited by a blind Muslim beggar and a Yoruba holy man as they await their son’s return home from the city. Religious corruption, family betrayal, opposing forces of tradition and modernity, the pull of self-determination, the wondrous and volatile relationship of humans to Nature: the themes of this searing, humorous, and thrilling drama are both timeless and palpably contemporary. Director Awoye Timpo (Obie Award winner, Wedding Band) returns to collaborate with TFANA for another seminal mid-century work.
TIME: The late 1950’s pre–Nigerian Independence
PLACE: A Village in the Swamps of the Nigerian Delta
Design by Paul Davis Studio / Paige Restaino