Kimberly Brown and Bianca SAms Trapped In the Continuum.

Two brilliant performances highlight In the Continuum now on stage at Cleveland Public Theatre. Kimberly Brown as Nia and Bianca Sams as Abigail seem at first to be worlds apart. Nia is an LA teen on probation for petty theft, Abigail, an educated television newswoman in Zimbabwe. But both are pregnant and in monogamous relationships. And both discover in the course of the play that they are HIV-positive.

In addition to coping with their diagnoses, they must both find the courage to stand up for themselves, to demand responsible behavior from their men and compassion from communities likely to blame them while excusing their male sexual partners. At the heart of their dilemma is the extent to which they themselves buy into this double standard. Their initial fear is not illness or death but abandonment by the men who infected them.

In the Continuum raises awareness about the new demographics of AIDS in which women and children are the primary victims. Black women in both Africa and the US are now the major source of new infections. The play explores the ways in which African-American women share the same beliefs and cultural biases as their Zimbabwean sisters while reminding us that the AIDS epidemic is rooted in societal problems that are centuries old and not confined to national or racial boundaries.

The play covers the 48-hour period surrounding their diagnoses. It is episodic, almost cinematic in flow, as the women travel from place to place in search of help and comfort. The two actresses play all the characters encountered on this journey of self- discovery. The script is a succession of monologues, although there is some cross-talk, for example, when Nia responds to the clinician diagnosing Abigail or when Abigail drops a tissue that is picked up by Nia.

Among the characters portrayed by Sams are an old high school friend who has become a prostitute and an acrobatic witch doctor. Her dialogue is sprinkled with Zimbabwean phrases, sometimes difficult to understand in the cavernous Levin Theatre. Brown's range seems broader as she changes from the trash-talking Nia to her middle-class probation officer, her abusive but memorable Mama and her gay male cousin. Brown has the perfect timing of a natural comedienne as well as the cultural advantage of playing characters more familiar to a US audience. Sams has the more difficult task of rendering Zimbabwean stereotypes in dialect. The young actresses are ably directed by Tony Sias.

In the Continuum is the work of playwright/performers Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter who met as students in the graduate acting program at New York University. The piece underwent further development at Primary Stages in New York and was shown in Greenwich Village and Hirare, Zimbabwe before beginning a US tour in the fall of 2006.

The CPT production includes a companion exhibition: Giving Women Power Over AIDS, which publicizes the research being done both globally and locally on HIV microbicides. These are topical treatments - gels, foams, creams - that woman can apply to protect themselves without the cooperation, consent or even knowledge of their sexual partners.

The CWRU/University Hospitals AIDS Clinical Trials Unit is one of six centers in the US that are part of the worldwide Microbicide Trials Network. The exhibit includes information on signing up for the clinical trials.

In the Continuum
Through May 3
Cleveland Public Theatre
6415 Detroit Ave.
Cleveland
216.631.2727