Eclipsed, opens Sept. 20; plays Tues.-Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 2 & 8 pm; Sun., 1 & 6:30 pm; through Oct. 18. Tickets: $20-$45. Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City 90232; 213.628.2772, TDD 213.680.4017 or centertheatregroup.org.
In 2003 a “Comprehensive Peace Agreement” ended the worst of nearly 14 years of bloody civil war in Liberia, the West African nation founded in 1821 by freed American slaves.
The last stages of this devastating war is the background for Eclipsed, the new play by African-American playwright Danai Gurira, who is well known to LA audiences for her Kirk Douglas Theatre production of In the Continuum, which also garnered her an Obie as best actress in New York. A unique aspect to Eclipsed is that it is being given three productions concurrently, in Los Angeles, in Washington DC and at Yale Rep. For the west coast premiere at the Douglas it is being directed by Robert O’Hara.
Danai Gurira
Gurira, born in the US and raised in her spiritual home Zimbabwe, began her artistic career as an actor, starting at the prestigious Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota, which she describes as a “politically astute school.” Indeed the college graduated alumni such as Kofi Annan. Gurira explains how the political moved her theatrical ambitions, “I wanted to affect the world with the actual art. I was a social-psychology major but the source of my joy is the dramatic arts. On a study abroad semester in South Africa it became clear to me I wanted to tell African women’s stories. My decision was made to create work but I could not find any stories, plays that spoke to the contemporary issues or experiences of African women. Necessity being the mother of invention, I started creating my own little pieces.”
She kept to the commitment of creating work, while simultaneous creating an acting career, receiving an MFA in theatre from NYU and working on and off-Broadway. Her extraordinary success writing and starring in In the Continuum convinced her to take the next step of writing a play in which she would not act. The result is a highly anticipated production about women crushed by the brutality of civil war. She explains, “I wanted to not be in this show. I wanted to be a writer. Another goal of mine is to give women of African descent the chance to tell stories. I don’t have to be the one in the light.”
Miriam F. Glover and Bahni Turpin in Eclipsed
The history of Liberia in general and specifically its civil history have an infinite number of stories. What Gurira found that horrified and fascinated her also fit into her desire to create works highlighting the experience of African women. She recalls the impetus for this play, “It was a New York Times article with a picture of Black Diamond who was a commander in the rebel army during the final conflict that brought the issues of these women’s stories to my mind.”
The Christian Science Monitor at the time described this true-life woman warrior. Gurira explains, “Black Diamond could be the prototype for an action hero, a sort of African ‘Lara Croft.’ She’s all sleek muscle and form-fitting clothes, with an AK-47 and red beret. She has a bevy of supporting beauties, equally stylish, who loiter nearby, polished fingernails clutching the cold steel of semi-automatic weapons. But this is no video game or action flick; it is one of Africa’s most intransigent and brutal conflicts where child soldiers brag about killing the ‘dogs’ on the other side and ragtag militias rape and pillage their way across the countryside.”
Eclipsed tells the story of these women rebels, not just the story of their deeds but the brutality that moved them to rebel. These women are the so called “officers’ wives,” she explains, “They were abducted and forced to be a ‘wife,’ that word is used a lot when a man would abduct a girl and make her pretty close to a sex slave; indoctrinated into the system of war by being raped. When a man decided she was his, she was his - until she could get away.”
While telling the truth is important to Gurira, she is in no way attempting docudrama - this is very dramatic but also very theatrical. She describes her approach, “The characters in the play are based on real people. But I do creative non-fiction. Everything is based on literal happenings but these are not literal characters you will find in the world. I create based on people I have met and researched; people who inspired it. I have to lend myself entirely to the process - totally give myself over to stories and what the real women feel is important. I become an absorber of what I am hearing and seeing.
“As a theatre artist I am also listening to sounds, experiences, voices. I go through a process of absorbing a world. From there the goal is to synthesize into a narrative. As an artist it is weird dealing with a world that was still so traumatized. This is the worst kind of human terrain you can imagine. But you have to look at the things that also fascinate you. You want to learn more about. It’s a narrative, not a documentary or news report. You have to find a way to tell the story, the parts that will grasp attention not in an intellectual way but in a way where they are really involved in a story. That gives more voice to these women than if they’re just news blurbs.”
Edwina Findley and Michael Hyatt
Part of that voice can be surprisingly humorous. “We sit and watch news reports and blurbs about all the tragedies in Africa. We assume everyone in Africa is lying on the floor and moaning ‘woe is me.’ The fact is Africa is 900 million people strong because people live and thrive and even in the worst of circumstances they find a way to still nourish their life forces in whatever way they can. Just by going into human relationships you are going to find humor. Just by letting people be who they are with each other.
“So to do anything other than allowing that to be so is denying them the complexity of their humanity. The style is very realistic. But there are certain aspects where it is theatricalized. The idea is definitely to get an audience connected to the very specific characters. There is no preaching, no over extraction to take you out of it. Very much like you are sitting in that home in Africa.”
All three productions will focus on the political as well as the personal but Gurira insists the latter is her ideal. “I am not a political scientist. I want to reflect on the stories and experiences of the least heard voices in the war zone. Women and younger people are always the most vulnerable. There is a proverb about Liberia, ‘When two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.’ This play is definitely about the grass.”
Feature image of Miriam F. Glover and Kelly M. Jenrette and story images by Craig Schwartz
Article by Tom Provenzano
