The Sunday News
UNITED STATES-based African actresses and sisters in showbiz, Kenyan Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira of Zimbabwe, are working together on a new play, Eclipsed, which is scheduled to be showcased in America next month.
The play will be showcased in New York, United States at the Public Theatre, marking both Lupita and the play’s debut in the city.
The play was previously performed in 2009 in Washington D.C. and New Haven, Connecticut.
Eclipsed is set during the Second Liberian Civil War (between 1999 and 2003) and focuses on a group of women who are the wives and prisoners of a rebel officer.
Their already chaotic world is disturbed even more when a new woman arrives.
“Danai Gurira has written a brilliant play, ripped from the headlines, that looks at the terrible conflicts in post-colonial Africa with an eye that is both incisive and deeply compassionate,” said American-based artistic director Oskar Eustis.
He went on to say: “A feminist reading of the Liberian Civil War, a war that was ended by women, Eclipsed is both heart-breaking and profoundly life-affirming. We are delighted to welcome the extraordinary Lupita Nyong’o to The Public in this vitally important play.”
The show is set to begin on September 29 and run till November 8.
Nyong’o will play “The Girl,” who disrupts the fragile community of vulnerable women when she becomes the newest addition to a rebel’s officer’s harem.
“Eclipsed reveals distinct women who must discover their own means of survival in this deeply felt portrait of women finding and testing their own strength in a hostile world of horrors not of their own making,” according to the press release.
Although better known for playing the sword wielding Michonne on The Walking Dead since 2012, Danai has been an active playwright for more than a decade.
She has written plays that include In the Continuum, The Convert, and Familiar.
Danai began writing plays because she felt a need for “something to perform that actually spoke to women” and stories she believed important to tell.
Danai co-wrote and co-starred in the off-Broadway play In the Continuum, which won her an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress.
In December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World Aids Day. In 2009, Danai debuted on Broadway in August Wilson’s play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
Danai received the Whiting Writers’ Award in 2012.
In January 2015, Familiar, a play written by Danai and directed by Rebecca Taichman, opened at Yale Repertory Theatre.
The play is about family, cultural identity, and the experience of life as a first-generation American, and Danai has said that it was inspired in part by family and friends of hers.
Danai starred in the 2007 film The Visitor, for which she won Method Fest Independent Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has appeared in the films Ghost Town, 3 Backyards, My Soul to Take, and Restless City, as well as the television shows Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Life on Mars, and Law & Order. From 2010 to 2011, she appeared in the HBO drama series Treme. In 2013, Danai played a lead role in director Andrew Dosunmu’s independent drama film Mother of George, which premiered at 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Danai received critical acclaim for her performance as a Nigerian woman struggling to live in the United States.
In June 2013, Danai won the Jean-Claude Gahd Dam award at the 2013 Guys Choice Awards.
