MIKE PETERS
From left, Nazira Cisse, Eugene Nesmith and Shiro Kihagi co-star in Premiere Stages’ production of “Mala Aria,” at Kean University in Union.
Amazia has a lot going on, in her life. Born and raised in Tanzania, she has moved to New York to study research science in a PhD program, and has set a goal for herself of eradicating malaria, the disease that killed her mother. She is adjusting to the unexpectedly cold weather, the strange food, and other aspects of New York life. And she also has begun her first lesbian relationship.
But there are more complications. Her father — a history professor back in Tanzania — is a devout Christian, and she knows he would object to her lesbianism. And while she is making promising strides in her research work, she hits a snag when she learns that it is hard to find funding, in America, for malaria research, since the disease does not have anywhere close to the impact in the United States as it does in Africa.
Amazia is the main character of Gloria Majule’s play “Mala Aria,” which is now being presented, in its world premiere, by Premiere Stages at Kean University, after being selected out of more than 800 submissions to win Premiere Stages’ 2025 Play Festival.
Majule, like Amazia, is originally from Tanzania. She moved to the United State nine years ago to study at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and has married and remained here. This is her first professionally produced play, and it is an auspicious debut, making it clear that she is one of those rare playwrights who can address world issues via an engaging story about realistic, relatable people. I highly recommend it.
MIKE PETERS
Shiro Kihagi, left, and Anita Welch-Smith in “Mala Aria.”
Jamil A.C. Mangan directs, and a sense of place and cultural orientation is effectively established by African patterns in the scenic design (by David M. Barber) and costumes (by Niiamar Felder), and the African-influenced music (by Carter “Roc” Mangan Jr.) that is heard between scenes.
Shiro Kihagi, Kenyan-born but now based in New York, plays Amazia, and is joined in the cast by Eugene Nesmith as Amazia’s father, Baba Amazia; Nazira Cisse as her younger sister, Kezia; and Anita Welch-Smith as her girlfriend, Jasmine.
The play’s title is the Italian phrase mala aria — which translates to “bad air” — from which the word malaria is derived. While I’m not sure that that is the best title for a play that is, in essence, a very moving family drama, malaria is central to much of the action.
After a brief mini-lecture by Amazia about malaria, the action begins in Tanzania, right after the death of Amazia and Kezia’s mother. The bond between the sisters and their father is immediately apparent. They are grieving, and swatting at mosquitoes (which carry malaria), but Baba Amazia says his wife would have wanted them to celebrate her life, and encourages them to “dance the sad away.”
Soon, Amazia, newly graduated from college, tells him about her desire to enter the PhD program in New York. Baba Amazia argues that she can get just as good a post-graduate education at UDSM (The University of Dar es Salaam), where he teaches. But she remains adamant.
MIKE PETERS
Eugene Nesmith and Nazira Cisse in “Mala Aria.”
“Scientific research is objectively more advanced in developed countries,” she argues.
Such countries “develop by exploiting countries like ours,” he counters, adding, a little later, “We can’t keep letting all the best African minds disappear to The West. If we keep doing that, they will keep exploiting us. We will never develop.”
He predicts that she will get a taste of American life, and American wealth, and never come back. She promises that she will just complete the program and then return, and use her education to help her birth country. He gives her his blessing.
Most of the rest of the play shows Amazia in New York, keeping in touch with her family mainly by talking to Kezia, by phone. While the feisty Kezia is supportive of Amazia, she is not ambitious in the same way. She is graduating from high school, but when Amazia suggests that she come to America, too, Kezia shows no interest. She would rather go to UDSM, and continue living with their widowed father.
While Amazia is focused on her studies, Kezia and Baba Amazia seem more mired in grieving. When Kezia becomes distraught over the fact that she can’t go prom-dress shopping with her mother, Baba Amazia touchingly offers to go in his wife’s place.
Overworking herself, and forgetting to eat, Amazia faints one day, and sees a doctor — Jasmine, whose family is Ugandan. They bond quickly — Jasmine is happy to meet another Black woman, as there are none in her graduate program — and their friendship soon becomes romantic, though Amazia’s instinct is to remain in the closet about it. (Jasmine became estranged from her family when she told them about her sexual orientation.)
MIKE PETERS
Eugene Nesmith and Anita Welch-Smith in “Mala Aria.”
When Amazia’s malaria research money dries up, she has some hard choices to make. Baba Amazia helps land her the offer of a position at UDSM, where she could continue to research malaria. He also astutely observes that while America may seem to offer more freedom than Tanzania, freedoms for minorities in American seem to be decreasing. (Amazia calls out his own quasi-Western prejudices, though, when she tells him, on a trip back home, that his anti-gay attitude is not native to Africa. “Before colonizers got here, queer people were seen as divine,” she says.)
The bottom line is that Amazia is not ready to leave Jasmine. They even start talking about marriage. But they could not openly be a gay couple in Tanzania. Amazia starts doing research in New York on lyme disease, with the idea that she can raise enough money to fund her own malaria research. But Majule jumps two years into the future, and we see that that strategy doesn’t work out so well, either.
Majule ends the play with a shock, and then a bittersweet, hopeful final scene that will linger in your memory for a long time. As will the complex, often conflicted but always sympathetic characters she has created.
Premiere Stages will present “Mala Aria” at The Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University in Union, through Aug. 2. Visit premierestagesatkean.com.
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