Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 21, 2006
Zingi Mkefa

Undoubtedly deserving of the award, In the Continuum truthfully unearths the thoughts, secrets and conversations between black women affected by and dying of HIV/Aids - in the US and in Zimbabwe.

Gurira explained what drew her to this subject. "I've always had a lot of rage about issues that have not necessarily had anything to do with me, right from high school."

She was born in the US to Zimbabwean parents.

An educational trip to Cape Town in 1999 helped her discover her calling.

"When I was in Cape Town, I met brave South African artists who had used their talent to fight the apartheid struggle. This inspired me to pursue this kind of theatre as a career. So it all started here in South Africa," said Gurira.

She became inspired to give voice to "African women's stories".

Gurira was born in the US, but she knows what she's talking about when she speaks of the "stifled" voice of African women.

When she was five years old, in 1983, her family moved back to Zimbabwe. Gurira lived there until she was 19 years old. "My formative years were spent in Zimbabwe. I absorbed the culture and it has never left me," she says.

Gurira plays Abigail, a self-made Zimbabwean woman who works as a news reader for the country's propagandist television station.

She, like many African women in her position, lives a double life as an ambitious and intelligent working woman and a subservient, voiceless wife and mother in an oppressive and conservative culture.

She discovers she's pregnant with her husband's child, and that she contracted HIV from him.

Across the Atlantic, Salter's 19-year-old character, Nia, goes through a similar journey.

Nia comes from a dysfunctional family. Matters get worse when Nia finds out that she is not only pregnant , but that she has contracted HIV from her boyfriend.

"We grow up being told not to have sex," says Salter. "But we're not raised to learn how else to show affection without having sex.

"With HIV, times have changed. Young people can no longer make mistakes and look back and correct them when they grow older, as our parents and grandparents did. You can't do that with HIV."

Salter, born in Los Angeles, discovered this character from a wake-up call of her own.

"I was watching MTV one day. In a documentary on HIV/Aids a statistic shocked me. It said that the number-one killer of African-American women in America was Aids."

Salter started questioning the statistic. If the statistic was indeed true, why was no one talking and doing something about it? Both actresses take on a myriad characters other than the protagonists Nia and Abigail.

As Salter puts it, they explore how the oppressive silence about HIV/Aids and a whole range of issues pertaining to sex, family relationships, gender roles, drugs and sexual orientation is perpetuated generation after generation.

The question is: how do we break the cycle?

* In The Continuum is on at the Market Theatre until June 4.

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