Playwright: Pearl Cleage
At: Eclipse Theatre at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: 773-871-3000; $22
Runs through: Sept. 2
By Catey Sullivan
Unlikely wisdom lurks in bus stations. Ride the Greyhound often enough and you start to absorb it: Profundity in the chatter between strangers. Small but inarguable joys in the vending machine snacks. Evidence, wedged between grimy hard-backed chairs, that no one is ever completely alone. With Late Bus to Mecca, playwright Pearl Cleage captures the humanity inherent to those way-station limbos where you can buy the promise of a new life for the price of a one-way ticket.
The second ( and by far the strongest ) piece in Eclipse Theatre's 2 By Pearl, Mecca is a story of strangers who become sisters, of a bond that speaks to the infinite ability of women to join hands in solidarity as they haul themselves out of the worst kind of mire. Directed by Thomas Jones, Mecca is never obvious. There's no chest-thumping hear-me-roar pop feminist shorthand here, and no stand-and-deliver anthemic heroics. Instead, actors Alana Arenas and Frances Wilkerson simply create two of the most indelible and richly textured women to grace a stage this summer. Ava Gardner Johnson ( Wilkerson at the performance I saw; she and Arenas switch roles at each performance ) is a prostitute and aspiring cosmologist. She has, we learn through a gum-snapping, hilariously matter-of-fact monologue, declared independence from her pimp because he wants her to incorporate animals into her job description. Life Lesson Number One? It's important to know when to draw the line. 'Animals is different,' Ava explains firmly, powdering her nose with the deft expertise of a beauty-school valedictorian.
ABW ( Another Black Woman ) is Ava's waiting room companion, wordless throughout and emitting an aura of profound, stunned trauma. Arenas, silent and remarkable, delivers a crystal clear portrayal of a damaged, resilient survivor while Wilkerson elicits both tears and laughter as she talks non-stop about the parade of lovers and betrayers that have marched through Ava's life.
The lessons of the bus station—projected in handy subtitles at the end of each scene—read like a relevant version of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Animals is different. Take care of your sisters. Respect yourself.
In all, Late Bus to Mecca shines with wit, warmth and intelligence. Unfortunately, those first two qualities are lacking in the evening's opener, Hospice. Also a two-hander, Hospice deals with a mother in the last throes of cancer and her pregnant daughter. Neither character invites empathy, but Cleage's dialogue is more problematic; it sounds like speechifying rather than genuine conversation. Director Chuck Smith draws effective, nuanced performances from Noelle Hardy ( as the daughter ) and Tanya Lane ( as the mother ) , but there's only so much the cast can do—Hospice feels like a warm-up for any number of Cleage's later, more deeply drawn female characters.