In ‘Eclipsed,’ a Captive Lupita Nyong’o Is Captivating
Charles IsherwoodMarch 6, 2016: The women depicted in Danai Gurira’s soul-searing “Eclipsed,” which opened on Broadway at the Golden Theater on Sunday, have lost just about everything. Their dignity, their freedom, their families, their hope. Perhaps most disturbingly, they have lost their own names, or rather tried to forget them. Caught up in the brutal violence of Liberian civil war, held captive as “wives,” really sexual slaves, of a rebel commanding officer, they prefer to refer to one another anonymously — as Number One or Number Three — as if their lives before the horror descended upon them never happened. It’s more painful to remember than to forget. For all its harrowing power, “Eclipsed,” headlined by the Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, one of the most radiant young actors to be seen on Broadway in recent seasons, shines with a compassion that makes us see beyond the suffering to the indomitable humanity of its characters.
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