Battle of the Sexes

Comments (0) By Paul Friswold Thursday, Mar 24 2011

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The war in Liberia is drawing to a close in the early 2000s, but the "wives" of the local warlord don't know it. All these women know is the drudgery of serving the man they call the "C.O." both as domestics and as sexual objects. They have been dehumanized to the point of not using names anymore, referring to themselves by their number in the pecking order, No. 1 through No. 4. But the spark of life still burns; No. 2 eventually picks up a gun and becomes a soldier fighting for the other side, developing into as ruthlessly lethal a killer as any man. Danai Gurira's Eclipsed is a harrowing look at the roles forced on women during wartime, but it also depicts how women played the part of peacemakers and healers — physically and spiritually — in a country where madness reigned for far too long. Eclipsed is presented by the Washington University Performing Arts Department at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (April 1 through 10) at the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre in Washington University's Mallinckrodt Center (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; 314-935-6543). Tickets are $10 to $15.
Fridays-Sundays. Starts: April 1. Continues through April 10, 2011