Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune - June 8, 2007
Chris Jones, Tribune theater critic, cjones5@tribune.com
Or that, at least, would be the experience if this piece of theater weren't so moving and so raw.
This is the kind of unusual but must-see attraction for which one hesitates to provide either theme or historical genesis. Neither do the work justice. Actually, both may deter you. So you'll just have to get past them and find your way to the box office.First the history. This show began life as two separate one-woman shows developed and performed by unknown, young, African-American writer-performers who happened to be in the same graduate acting program at New York University.
Salter's piece told the life and times of Nia, a haplessly pregnant teenager from South Central Los Angeles who has never been taught to think beyond her own circle of experience. That circle starts and ends with her sometime boyfriend -- although that term implies greater commitment than Nia enjoys -- whom she thinks will still love her, even as he makes the big moola in the NBA. He has given her the AIDS virus. Her spirit remains unvanquished, but she has no idea what to do.
Gurira's piece told the life and times of Abigail, a TV anchor for the government network in Harare, Zimbabwe. Smart and well-educated, Abigail sees a lot of circles -- concentric and otherwise -- swooping around the geo-political landscape. But there's a man who tells lies in her life too. She's married to him and infected by him. Separated by a continent and an oceanic difference in world view, Nia and Abigail end up in much the same situation and with similarly pathetic mechanisms of so-called support.
Almost by a series of accidents, the two shows ended up fused under shrewd direction of Robert O'Hara at New York's Primary Stages.
Over the course of 90 riveting minutes, you find yourself watching two characters -- along with all the friends, adversaries and authority figures that invade and complicate their lives -- created by two extremely talented performing artists who've lodged themselves deep into fictional psyches they've come to understand on a very deep level. Gurira was born in the U.S. to parents from Zimbabwe. Salter is interested in the American inner-city landscape.
Yet it is in the contrast between the stories that the power of this extraordinary work actually lies. When the portraiture is combined, you get enough alienating distance for your mind also to dance away to the show's broader and laudably ambiguous implications about HIV, education, globalism and urban isolation. You come to see the similarity of a young woman's experience across the borders of education and geography. On a second viewing of a show that's only deepened over time, it struck me how deftly Gurira and (especially) Salter walk the line between building empathy for their characters and laying bare their personal responsibilities. They're neither victims, nor ciphers, nor women of certainty. They just feel real.
The pieces remain distinct. Salter and Gurira never look directly at each other. They never explicitly appear in their partner's story. Except in the continuous, (un)changing picture they imprint on your mind and emotions.
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"In the Continuum"
When: Through June 24
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $10-$35 at 312-443-5151
070608
CT070603
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