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By Carol Davis
 CULVER CITY, California -- In Danai Gurira’s new play Eclipsed currently premiering at the Kirk Douglas Theatre here, the four women portrayed in the play have no names. They are referred to as #1, (Bahni Turpin)#2, (Kelly M. Jenrette) #3 (Edwina Findley) and #4 (Miriam F. Glover) as in wife # 1,2, 3 and 4 except #4 is referred to as ‘The Girl’. She was the most recently captured by the rebels.
For these women and all who come after them, after being captured and placed in the hands of the rebel leaders this becomes their identity status and whenever the leader of that particular area wants one of them, (“Who me?” they gesture when one is being beckoned) she goes. The play is set in war torn Liberia around 2003 (14 years after it started) which according to the crib notes handed out in the lobby, was led by the ruthless Charles Taylor, whose trial for International Crimes continues, to this day, at The Hague.
Each of the women has her role to play in this setting defined by thick, tall and lush jungle growth in the background with a carved out home of sorts on a dry and dirt floor that rotates slightly. Off to one side is the rebel camp (which we never see). The women’s campsite (Sibyl Wickersheimer) is complete with some crude cooking devices, blankets that they unroll at night to sleep on, and bowls of water to sponge off after they have satisfied ‘their leader.'
While it appears to be business as usual in the compound when we first meet up with the women, we soon learn that there is nothing usual, at least in my world, about their living conditions, their lives or their station in life. But for an accident of birth, these women have been in a war-ravaged country so long they know no other way of being.
That is at least until two other faces arrive on the scene. Number 2 left the compound several years ago to fight with the rebels and she tries to enlist #4, the newest of the ‘enlistees’ (she’s the only one who can read), into joining her. #2 carries an AK 47 automatic weapon, wears combat boots and jeans, is never bothered by the soldiers and has all of the accommodations she needs.
Finally we meet Rita who represents the peacemakers and activists who will ultimately march to the United Nations to intervene on behalf of their country in trying to bring Charles Taylor to justice. She lost a daughter to the war and is in constant search of that girl. Her refrain is, “What is your name. Who was your mother?”
The fact that none remembers her name is quite disconcerting. The tug of war for the attention and loyalty of #4 or ‘the girl’ and #2, the army and Rita the peacekeeper who thinks this ‘girl’ may be her lost daughter, becomes a tug at the heart in the final scenes of the play.
Director Robert O’Hara and playwright Danai Gurira have focused the attention away from war (which continually lingers in the background) and puts a human face to the struggles of the women left behind, (in every war) and their plight to live in some semblance of normality.
In the program notes Gurira writes: “This play is my humble attempt to give voice to women who navigate vicious terrains not of their making. To give their stories, their personhoods,
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their Eclipsed light a full though fleeting chance to shine”
Bahni Turpin is calm and in control as #1. She’s been there the longest and is just fine with the fact that the C.O. of the compound does not put any sexual demands on her. She has her own plans of leaving some day. Edwina Findley is perfect as #3. The least educated of the four, she goes willingly to her boss and even after she becomes pregnant, she remains true to her station in life even after she has options. It takes very little to make her happy even if it means stealing from the other girls to get what she wants. She is convincing to the point of feeling empathy and anger for her character.
The more complicated of the group, #’s 4 and 2 are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Kelly M. Jenrette is tough and hardened as the rebel soldier. She takes crap from no one. She looks the part, muscular, tough and takes no prisoners; the indoctrination of #4 proves that. You are either in or out! Jenrette is perfectly suited as the gun-toting rebel.
Miriam Glover’s #4 is the most complex of the characters. Educated and sheltered from life early on until now, she remains in good spirits even reading aloud to the others chapters from an old biography of Bill Clinton (some of the lighter moments in the play) that somehow made it to the compound, that is until she gets the nod from the Boss.
Lessons come hard and when she is enticed by # 2 to join up with her and the Rebel Army you almost want to yell, “NO!” And yet, there is the survival end to it. “In 14 years of war 250,000 Liberians were killed and 2/3 of the population was displaced. The country’s infrastructure was obliterated.”
Michael Hyatt’s Rita is such a welcome and reassuring change from the others, yet she is still anxious to find her own daughter. After listening to her pleas to leave the area while there is time, one wonders why there is even a hint of hesitation from the three remaining women to join her in her efforts. Yet some did in spite of the dangers and uncertainty and because of women like Rita, change is taking place.
Christopher Kuhl’s lighting design complements the setting beautifully with one exception. When one panel of lights focuses on one side of the stage, it creates huge and distracting shadows on the opposite side. Kathryn Bostic’s costumes are colorful and appropriately fitting for the life the women lead. Adam Phalen’s sound design of machinegun rounds in the background, intentionally or not, anchors us back to the center of war torn Liberia.
In light of the current political accusations and name-calling going on these days in Washington, D.C. at the center of our own ‘civilized’ government over a health care bill and social compassion, I hesitate to call annihilation like that a Holocaust. However, as Jews just coming from Temples and Synagogues after fasting on Yom Kippur and remembering the six million who lost their lives in the Shoah, it’s difficult to turn the other cheek especially when countries like Liberia and now Sudan, where genocide in Darfur is reaching almost 4,000,000 and where 2.5 million have fled their homes and live in camps, continues.
Eclipsed will continue through Oct. 18th at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. For more information visit www.centertheatregroup.org It’s worth a try.
See you at the theatre.
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