Where Are You From? Part 1

Where Are You From? Part 1 is a family drama that touches on a couple of different story arcs. Among many subjects, the play reflects the theme of private versus public, foreigner versus native, and the frequently thorny issues of family life and how the family unit intersects with society. Julien Pikwa, originally from Togo, living in the United States, meets crucial obstacles to his family eventual happiness. As a head of a blended American family, he struggles to balance his culture, trust, love, and responsibility to the temperaments, interests, ethnicities, and moods of his wife, Elda, and her children. Julien interactions with his wife, and her children, allow him to breathe life into his household through an exploration of and experimentation with less family's intimacy and privacy. A family, as he demanded it, in the play, should be very much an inside space, immune from breaches by outsiders. However, Elda, an American citizen, mother of four, has allowed, Dorkin, one of his four baby daddies, to come pick up Mawi, his son, anytime. Julien eventual refusal leads him to a faceoff with Dorkin, and to a chronic tension with his wife. Would Elda be able to preserve the intimacy of her family, its unity, and its emotional health, or would she still be branding freedom and America to bring happiness to herself and to her family? Find out in Where Are You From? Part 1, a family drama about love, trust, happiness, race, responsibility, and more.