'Mala Aria' Brings a Powerful Journey of Identity to Premiere Stages
Many great stories ask the same enduring question in multiple ways: Who am I, and where do I belong? Some argue that myths across cultures share a common journey in which the hero leaves the familiar, confronts profound trials, and returns transformed. Yet for many descendants of the African diaspora, the journey is vastly more complicated. The homeland is both real and imagined, inherited through memory rather than experience, while the "new world" is both a place of opportunity and a reminder of displacement.
In The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy suggests that Black identity is not defined by a single nation but by centuries of movement, exchange, and cultural creation across oceans. This new play brings those ideas vividly into the present through its queer Black heroine, whose search for home is as much spiritual and emotional as it is geographic. Her journey challenges the notion that identity requires choosing between past and present, homeland and adopted land. Instead, she invites us to consider whether home is something we inherit—or something we create. I had an opportunity to speak with playwright Gloria Majule and director Jamil A.C. Mangan to discuss how they have brought this deeply personal and profoundly universal story to the stage.
Playwright Gloria Majule said: “I wrote the very first draft of Mala Aria back in 2018. And it's just so exciting to see it come to life, and the cast is amazing. The team is amazing. The director is amazing, and we've been having a really fruitful time in rehearsal. This was our first week, and it's just been so wonderful to be in a room with such generous, smart and talented human beings, just all coming together to tell this story. It has been truly, very exciting.
Let’s talk about some of the autobiographical elements of the story. How do you relate to Amazia?
“I emigrated to the States for college, and I did not know anyone in the States. I left pretty much my whole family behind in Tanzania. There was definitely something about the experiences of being a black immigrant, but I was also drawing from the experiences of growing up in a country outside of the United States. That duality of what it means to have a home that is on the other side of the world, but it is also what happens when you get a new chosen home. And so, my experience has influenced the stories that I tell, because it is such, it is such a, it is such a life-changing experience. To leave a country and come to a different country, I'm always very fascinated by what it means to be black, especially in Africa. And then what it means to be black outside of Africa. And that question definitely lives in a lot of my stories.
“Funnily enough, I actually started writing this play when my husband was working in a mosquito lab! He was working to research mosquitoes. but they were not malaria mosquitoes. And, you know, malaria has always been such a part of my story because growing up in Tanzania, I got malaria multiple times in my childhood. My sister got malaria as a child. It was always such a horrible experience. When I was in high school, my maternal grandmother passed away from malaria complications. I wanted to imagine a protagonist who makes it their life’s mission to eradicate malaria. So, it's never been this foreign, unknown entity to me. It's literally a part of my story.
I definitely want to thank Premiere Stages at Kean. I am just so excited that they are doing my 1st full production. I'm so grateful. I want to thank my team, the directors, the design team, the actors. I sincerely want to think Premier stages for this great opportunity.
Jamil, where do things stand in rehearsals now?
Director Jamil A.C. Mangin said: “It is really, really wonderful to see things coming together. I think the audience is going have, wow, just an amazing, an amazing experience. I always enjoy my work, but this part of rehearsal, getting into this part, getting to know each other, and once you start to get to know each other, cool things start to happen.
What excites me about the process so far, um, it's just, you know, seeing these, um, the, the, the bond and the synergy between the cast, um, already coming into fruition. I think what we're building all together and and what we're building all together is something fantastic.
“I want to thank Gloria. I think that this show is special in so many ways. Not often do we get to see shows of the African diaspora on the American stage. We highlight issues that many of us aren't really familiar with, right? Almost half a million people, die of malaria each year in Africa. A lot of them are kids under 5, you know? Even if we know of this information, these are just statistics, but what the plague does to us, to our characters, these are their everyday lived in lives.
“The play gives us that opportunity to see these folks; the play starts already with the loss of the matriarch due to malaria. We see them navigate through their various stages of grief and loss. But there's an aspect of grief people rarely talk about, and that is of identity. Grief and identity change you. It affects your identity. And so who am I now? Who am I without this person present? Who am I?
“And yet there is levity to the play. There is tremendous joy and the play just offers so much hope. And Gloria doesn't tie it all up in a bow. She allows the audience to infer and to question choices within the play. But then at the same time, she doesn’t place blame on anybody. She (the playwright) obviously has a brilliant sense of humor too, which she brings to the script. I'm a true believer, Chris, that when you open up your mouth to laugh, you open up your heart to feel… Then you open up your brain to think. This play, Mala Aria, it does all three, just brilliantly, you know? And so, yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Mala Aria will run on the Premiere Stages at Kean from July 16 through August 2.
