The first notices are in for creation stories and all the important importants, Mfoniso Udofia’s world premiere for LCT3, which opened at Lincoln Center Theater’s Claire Tow Theater on Thursday, October 1. Directed by Tamilla Woodard, the 95-minute play follows a playwright and teacher known only as thegrownwoman through one long day on which her last round of IVF hangs in the balance, shadowed by her nine-year-old self and by a rapping horse of her own invention. The critics part company over the writing rather than over the evening’s lead. TheaterMania and Pages on Stages are moved by it; Vulture finds it self-absorbed; New York Stage Review, Culture Sauce, New York Theatre Guide and Theater Pizzazz admire the ambition and wish the play held its many threads more firmly. On Abigail C. Onwunali, at least, they agree.
The verdict: seven reviews in so far, and only two of them carry a score: New York Stage Review and Culture Sauce both give it three out of five, an average of 3.0. The other five outlets publish no rating. Beyond that the notices pull a long way apart, from Pages on Stages, which calls it a remarkable show, to Vulture, which finds it monotonous and heavy-handed. What every one of them has a good word for is Abigail C. Onwunali.
What are critics saying about creation stories and all the important importants?
Vulture
“Yes, It’s Tough to Be a Playwright”
Reviewer: Sara Holdren
“About two thirds of Udofia’s 95-minute play consists of Onwunali barrelling around the stage describing her own actions. She’s a strong actor (in last spring’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, her late-in-the-story entrance ratcheted the drama to a whole new level), but this is punishing material, monotonous and heavyhanded. Seven years ago, in reviewing Udofia’s runboyrun and In Old Age — two plays from her nine-play Ufot Cycle, which is unfolding in its entirety in Boston — I wrote that the playwright “never does something once or twice when she can do it on a continuous loop.” I wish I could say that’s changed, but Udofia remains committed to reiteration far past the point of dramatic efficacy.”
TheaterMania
“Abigail Onwunali Triumphs in Mfoniso Udofia’s Complex Creation Stories”
Reviewer: Dan Rubins
“Thegrownwoman narrates her day in third-person, a smile plastered on her face and a forced lilt in her voice. It becomes clear that the narration isn’t for us; it’s the engine she needs to barrel through her day, pushing aside the soul-breaking burden of trying to conceive on her own. Onwunali navigates Udofia’s complex text with marvelous lucidity and emotional range. Because thegrownwoman has perfected this performance for herself, we believe her too, and when she finally cracks open, releasing her despair, it’s wrenching.”
New York Stage Review
“A Magical Drama About a Wanna-Be Mama”
Reviewer: Michael Sommers · 3 out of 5
“Yes: There is a lot going on here between Udofia’s maximalist play and its accouterments in LCT3’s sumptuous, well-acted production that opened Thursday. Tamilla Woodard, the director, rolls everything out smoothly, but some of that overabundant content flies by awfully quickly for certain demographics to grasp. Fortunately for everyone in the audience, the central role of thegrownwoman is performed by Abigail C. Onwunali, who urgently and beautifully depicts her ever-striving character with an expressive face, a bold physicality, and a melodic voice. Initially hidden beneath her costume as a spooky Cousin It-like raffia bush in the opening nightmare sequence (remember that?), a fun Donnetta Lavinia Grays returns later to sing up more than one storm as a swaggering cartoon hero. Like Onwunali, a member of the recent Joe Turner’s Come and Gone company, Savannah Commodore is a natural charmer whose wide-eyed amiable child here sympathetically watches a future version of herself implode.”
Culture Sauce
“‘Creation Stories’ finds fertile ground in a blocked writer longing for motherhood”
Reviewer: Thom Geier · 3 out of 5
“She also studs the material with a lot of humor, from the names of fictional pregnancy-advice websites (Ovaryachiever.com) to Grays’s patter-perfect rap rejecting the woman’s assertion that he’s just a deus ex machina to lead the protagonist to her required epiphany. “I’m not God in the machine,” Mr. Cornell retorts, “I’m more akin to Chekhov’s Pony.” There’s a great deal of playfulness here, of subverting dramatic tradition while calling out the subversions at the same time. The storytelling is enhanced by Jason Adrixxone-West’s elegant set design, Alan C. Edwards’s lighting, and Katherine Freer’s projections that conjure both storybook simplicity and the awesome evocation of the cosmos.”
New York Theatre Guide
“How a playwright escapes the grind”
Reviewer: Caroline Cao
“A playwright writing about writing doesn’t have to be an exhausting meta-affair — it can be an imaginative one. Through a Nigerian American mythic lens, Mfoniso Udofia’s personal play is a chronicle of health, writer’s block, and self-care, but it doesn't explore all these themes deeply enough. Somewhere in the stars, there’s a future iteration of creation stories and all the important importants that could be as expansive as its charms require.”
Theater Pizzazz
Reviewer: Stuart Miller
“The “Grown Woman” references Samuel Beckett at one point and there’s a Beckett-ian frustration and futility we feel while watching her push a cart through Costco and around the city, talking herself into going on. But Beckett often aims for the head, not the heart and this play seems to want both, which puts it in conflict with itself. The minimalist and abstract set is visually arresting but takes us away from the woman’s very real pain. What keeps it grounded and intimate are the performances, especially the fully present, deeply emotional Onwunali, whose life and hormones are tossing her to and fro.”
Production photographs by Valerie Terranova.
Pages on Stages
“Expecting Unexpecting”
Reviewer: Mason Pilevsky
“Though centered around a serious topic, it’s important to note that creation stories and all the important importants isn’t sad or heavy. Udofia’s script is incredibly well written— sometimes time flies and sometimes it lingers, but the familiarity of thegrownwoman sits comfortably with the audience, even in moments of the character’s distress. By allowing us to sit comfortably with the stressful minutia of living, Udofia allows us to sit comfortably with the stressful expansiveness of the universe such that we experience vastness in the hands of someone we trust, without terror or denial. Centered around the loss of thegrownwoman’s ability to be everything she expected to be, we taste the grandeur of everything she didn’t expect to be. creation stories and all the important importants showcases the importance of a good cry, and it is truly a remarkable show.”
For more from the season, read our roundups for Degenerates at Playwrights Horizons, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and How Shakespeare Saved My Life at the Public Theater, or go back to our first look at the production photographs.
creation stories and all the important importants runs at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater, 150 West 65th Street, through November 1, 2026. The running time is 95 minutes with no intermission.
