Review: Broadway Transfer of Danai Gurira's ECLIPSED Is a Major Achievement

Two women stand quietly at attention waiting to see whose turn it is to be raped. They hide the youngest of them under a plastic tub, protecting her for as long as they can. One of them points to herself, acknowledging that she's been chosen by the unseen general. She leaves the crumbling building they call home and then returns a minute or so later to wash between her legs with a wet cloth from a bucket.

That heart-sinking scenario is witnessed several times in Danai Gurira's expertly tense and gripping Eclipsed, a harrowing, but ultimately uplifting drama that, given the subject matter, is beautifully layered with warmth and humor.

Plays about the different ways women choose to respond to institutionalized rape during wartime are not standard Broadway fare, and ECLIPSE's transfer from its October-opening run at The Public Theater, should be considered a major achievement, no doubt accelerated by the facts that the playwright is known for her acting role on the popular television series THE WALKING DEAD, and one-fifth of its superb ensemble is Academy Award-winner Lupita Nyong'o.

There are no male characters in Eclipsed, set in 2003, near the end of the Second Liberian Civil War. We never see or hear any of the violence first hand, nor are there any tearful scenes or gut-wrenching monologues about the encounters. At the beginning of the play, there's a casualness with which the women accept their seemingly unavoidable roles because they know nothing else.

As the eldest puts it, ".I no know who I is out of war."

Living in a crumbling concreate shack (terrific set and costume designs by Clint Ramos) the women spend the day gossiping, styling each other's hair and amusing themselves with a copy of a Bill Clinton biography. The book is their only connection to the outside world, aside from the discarded American t-shirts they wear with cartoon images and corporate logos.

They refer to themselves as wives of a commanding officer in the army of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, the rebels who would take over the government after ousting President Charles Taylor. While they all have names, they refer to themselves with numbers designating their status. The protective Helena (Saycon Sengbloh) is number one, pregnant Bessie (Pascale Armand) is number three and the 15-year-old refugee they've been hiding, referred to only as the girl (Nyong'o) is eventually discovered and designated as number four.

Number two Maima (Zainab Jah) has become a commander in an army of women who have taken up arms to protect themselves from rape and fight for the rebel cause. Jah gives a dynamic performance as a forceful leader who has learned to disregard any thoughts of an enemy soldier's humanity. Dressed in sexy tops and designer jeans with long braided hair, her glamorous toughness helps inspire other women to join her ranks.

When the girl concludes that Helena's age and Bessie's late-month pregnancy means she will be the one being raped regularly, she joins with Maima, but soon learns that the horrors of war not only include bloodshed, but also forcing the women of the opposing side into the life she's escaping.

Gurira eventually introduces peace activist Rita (Akosua Busia) one of hundreds of women who are demanding both sides to lay down their arms and enter into peaceful negotiations.

While the girl is very much a follower in the play's first half, and as she's exposed to more realities of her world, Nyong'o makes a striking transformation from victim to oppressor to a woman conflicted by what's in her heart and what others are telling her.

Every woman in the play is doing what she thinks is best to either fight against her country's patriarchy or survive it, but their differences pit them against each other. Liesel Tommy's excellent direction and the playwright's sensitive writing balances each argument evenly, presenting each woman to be heroic, and flawed, in her own way.