‘Untitled’ at Inis Nua: Passionate but overwritten

Inis Nua Theatre Company has stepped out of its defining circle — presenting plays from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — with Untitled, a work by Nigerian-born playwright Inua Ellams. Under Jerrell L. Henderson’s direction, Keith Illidge takes on the enormous task of playing all the roles with their various accents in this 90-minute monologue.

The two main characters in Untitled are twins. One is Nigerian, living in his native village, and one is British Nigerian, living in London. Like the play, the Nigerian character, called X, is unnamed, and that lack of a title defines him. We are told that “to name something is to call it into life,” so X’s existence lacks a center. He is so violent and so dangerous and so wild that he is exiled from his people and lives in the forest as a kind of folk hero to the local boys. He learns the “masculine life of the drum,” and excites women to primal frenzy.

We learn all this from the storyteller, who additionally acts out both X and Y as well as all the minor characters in the myth-like tale. As twins often are, X and Y are profoundly linked although they have never met, until Y feels an inner compulsion to go find his brother and his roots by traveling to Nigeria.

It begins in the dark with a scream. Lights up on Marie Laster’s excellent set: a dirt floor, a huge tree trunk, various plants strewn around. When the play shifts to London, Illidge, as Y, puts a shirt over his body, adorned with traditional designs, and he stands in a spotlight with a handheld mic.

The two narratives are hard to follow; Ellams’ script is poetically overwritten and overlong, and the accents get in the way of intelligibility, so despite Illidge’s passionate performance, the show doesn’t fully engage us.

Through May 12 at Inis Nua Theatre Company, Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake, 302 S. Hicks St. Tickets: $25-$30. Information: 215-454-9776, inisnuatheatre.org.