Henry Okigbo plays Yanga, who led a real-life slave rebellion against the Spanish in Mexico. Rodney Garza plays Don Pedro at the Latino Cultural Center. Centuries ago, even before the first captured ...

From left, Henry Okigbo, Sydney Hewitt and Rodney Garza in a scene from the English-language premiere of Jaime Chabaud's play "Yanga," about a formerly enslaved African who founded one of the first ...

Henry Okigbo (left) plays Yanga, who led a real-life slave rebellion against the Spanish in Mexico, and Rodney Garza is Don Pedro in the Cara Mia Theatre-Soul Rep Theatre collaboration "Yanga." Ben ...

The English-language premiere of "Yanga" is at its best when the action shifts to taut, intense exchanges between characters. These scenes make the brutality and human cost of slavery feel visceral.