Playwright: Danai Gurira & Nikkole Salter. At: Pegasus Players, 4520 N. Beacon St. Tickets: 1-866-811-4111. www.pegasusplayers.org; $25. Runs through: June 17
It seems as though all the performance arts gathered for a conference in the late '80s-early '90s and theatre agreed to inherit the responsibility of chronicling the story of HIV/AIDS. In the Continuum premiered in 2005, nearly 25 years after the epidemic began, yet it still covers newor at least overlookedground.
After a run at the Goodman Theatre in 2007, In the Continuum returns to Chicago thanks to Pegasus Players, perfectly fitting the company's mission of issue-driven theatre that crosses all manner of social boundaries. For a play about two young women starring only two young women, it's as brave a production as the story is in the spiritual sense.
In the Continuum tells two parallel stories, one of an African-American teenager in Los Angeles and one of an African woman in Zimbabwe, who learn they are HIV-positive. The impact on their lives is immediate and devastating, and the play focuses on the social aftermath of this life-changing discoveryhow it exacerbates lives that are already challenged.
Actresses Sam Bailey and Ashleigh LaThrop tackle the challenge of portraying these women (as well as several other people of influence in these women's lives) with a certain spirit, as if privileged and honored to take sole responsibility in telling their character's story. Only interacting with each other directly once at the very beginning of the play, they basically run one-woman shows, acting against other characters that aren't there.
Although Bailey comes on strong toward the end, LaThrop captivates from start to finish as Nia, the teenager who starts to realize she's losing control of her life when she finds out she's HIV-positive and pregnant with a promising athlete's baby. When LaThrop plays the other characters Nia seeks for advice, she transforms completely and convincingly, which helps her to nail the ironic tone of the play's humor.
Bailey keeps up mostly in exuberance as Abigail, a mother who senses what she perceived to be a steady marriage is likely to crumble now that she has HIV. The characters she gets to play are less divisive, but she ends on a high note as a witch doctor, a prostitute andin the last sceneas Abigail again.
It's not easy to command an empty stage, so some scattered scenes drag a bit throughout the 90-minute run time, but these young women embrace the script in both its lighter and darker moments and the passion shows. Ultimately, they capture the struggle of these women who wish to stay strong in the face of this deflating adversity but must come to terms with its futile nature.
As a presence in the play, HIV is markedly silent, but the psychological torment it brings to these characters speaks to why the still-increasing rate of HIV in Black women both here and in Africa is so much more than a crisis of health.