This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
Before the world knew her as a katana-wielding badass in “The Walking Dead” or a spear-wielding badass in Marvel’s “Black Panther” franchise, Danai Gurira was a pen-wielding badass who wrote plays with strong female characters.
One of Gurira’s best-known pieces is the 2005 play “In the Continuum,” which she co-wrote with Nikkole Salter. Their Obie-winning, globe-touring show has been revived by Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre Company through June 18.
Running about 90 minutes with no intermission, the play follows two women who, on paper at least, inhabit completely different lives. Abigail is a married, middle-class broadcaster in Harare, Zimbabwe, while Nia is a 19-year-old aspiring poet who grew up poor in an abusive household in south central Los Angeles and is dating a rising basketball star.
Abigail and Nia’s storylines begin to parallel poignantly when they each discover they’re pregnant and HIV positive in one fell swoop, having contracted the virus from duplicitous men they thought they could trust.
Only two actors inhabit the stage, playing a total of 11 characters in a series of interconnected monologues. The play covers many themes, including the intersection of misogyny, racism and bigotry within public health; the continued stigma around HIV/AIDS; the gaping disparities in health care; and the lack of choices that so many women, particularly poor or disenfranchised women, face when they get sick.
The success of a show like this depends on the ability of the actors to carry us through the many layers and ups-and-downs of this journey and to mine the humor and heartache embedded in the script in equal measure at times. Unfortunately, both of the actors in Synchronicity’s staging start out dialed up to 11. They maintain that same pitch throughout, making the experience of watching the show less of a finely tuned emotional slow burn and more of an exhausting sprint that goes beyond what feels possible.
Asha Basha Duniani plays Nia less like a teenager who wears her confidence as a shield and more like someone filled with such relentless confidence that she’s mostly just grating in the first half of the show. Duniani’s intensity and commitment are in many ways admirable, but ultimately, the characters she’s tasked with portraying would have benefited from more nuance and dimension.
Dionna Davis as Abigail elevates many of her scenes, including some touching moments between Abigail and her unseen young son. She also delivers a very funny turn as one of Abigail’s well-meaning “friends” who has swooped into town from the United Kingdom. At the same time, she portrays several characters who are so over the top that it distracts from what’s happening in the scene.
For instance, she plays a shrieking, physically awkward nurse who coldly delivers the HIV diagnosis to Abigail and feels straight out of a sketch show. This doesn’t for a moment ring true even for the most beleaguered, cynical veteran of a profoundly underfunded, burnout-ridden health care system. The goofiness is a distraction from what is actually haunting and, at times, darkly funny about that particular vignette.
These misfires in bringing so many potentially fascinating characters to life are even more baffling because Valeka Jessica, making her directorial debut here, is such a talented actor, nominated last year for a local theatrical Suzi Bass Award for her beautiful work in “Intimate Apparel” at Actor’s Express.
If anyone can work effectively with fellow actors to make sure that they’re capturing the depths of emotional complexity, it stands to reason that she could. And perhaps with more opportunities to explore her vision at the helm of future shows, she’ll show more of what she can do. I’ll watch excitedly to see that come to fruition.
However, the hit-you-over-the-head approach to the already difficult subject matter — still depressingly timely almost 20 years since the play debuted — means we miss softer pieces of dialogue and never quite dig into the ways that each character is distinct and what they contribute to the larger picture.
Ultimately, it’s a disappointment because you can see the play that’s beneath it all, hiding under the high-pitched frequency. And you are left wondering how much more impact the play could have had under a gentler guiding force.
THEATER REVIEW
“In the Continuum”
Through June 18. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday. $25-45. Synchronicity Theatre, One Peachtree Pointe, 1545 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com.
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Alexis Hauk is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association. She has written and edited for numerous newspapers, alt-weeklies, trade publications and national magazines including Time, The Atlantic, Mental Floss, Uproxx and Washingtonian. An Atlanta native, Alexis has also lived in Boston, Washington D.C., New York City and Los Angeles. By day, she works in health communications. By night, she enjoys covering the arts and being Batman.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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