Theater Reviews: The Public Opens Hungry and Sends Eclipsed Uptown
7 / 10
The front cover of the Playbill for the Broadway production of Eclipsed, which opened tonight, features the beautiful face of its star, Lupita Nyong'o, looking worried. The back cover, an ad for Lancôme, also features Nyong'o, smiling broadly. No doubt the back cover subsidized the front, because the chances of a play like Eclipsed getting to Broadway without a star of Nyongo's current cachet are nil. Eclipsed is about Liberian women forced into sex slavery during that country's mad civil war. And while it has moments of light-heartedness, and a wind-up that could conceivably be called hopeful (the war, after all, does end), most of the play, by Danai Gurira, is crushingly sad; what else could it be? So let us be grateful to 12 Years a Slave, the Academy Awards, and Advanced Génifique Youth Activating Serum for allowing a moving and must-see production to move and be seen.

