Performed up close and in the round at Utopia Theatre’s Sheffield city centre home, just 50 tickets are available for each of 14 performances of The Swamp Dwellers.
The cast is currently deep in rehearsal under Utopia’s artistic director Mojisola Kareem. They are Jude Akuwudike as Makuri, Urielle Klein-Mekongo as Alu, Theo Ogundipe as Kadiye, Obi Maduegbuna as the beggar, Mr Culture as the drummer and Joshua Roberts-Mensah as Igwezu.
Kareem (Crown of Blood, Death and The King’s Horseman) has thoughtfully resurrected Nigerian Nobel laureate writer and activist Wole Soyinka’s early play, bringing it back to the UK stage for the first time in over half a century.
Photo courtesy of Utopia Theatre Creative Hub
She believes the 1958 work to be one of Soyinka’s most “quietly powerful plays”, which “sits in the shadows” of the better-known Death and the King’s Horseman and The Lion and the Jewel.
The Swamp Dwellers was last staged in the UK in 1975 at African Caribbean arts centre Keskidee in Islington, north London.
The Swamp Dwellers plays at Utopia Theatre Creative Hub 29 June-11 July 2026. Tickets are availabe here.
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