People working in public- and private-health spaces have long used the term “continuum of care.” Simply put, when a patient receives a diagnosis for a chronic condition, they need to go on a figurative “continuum” ensuring that the condition is both treated and managed so the patient leads a healthy life.
So In the Continuum, the 2005 monologue play now being presented by Evanston’s Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, seems somewhat ironically titled. It features two women—one in Africa, one in the African Diapora—newly diagnosed with HIV, who find few people are concerned about their health.
One of those women is Nia (Jewell Redman), a young Black woman, barely out of high school, living in South Central Los Angeles. She’s been seeing Darnell, a star athlete who’s being prospected by the majors, and she’s been looking forward to easier life at his side. But shortly after In the Continuum begins, Nia, out for an evening on the town, becomes violently ill.
Nia’s counterpart is Abigail (Tuesdai B. Perry), a newscaster in Harare, Zimbabwe. Abigail has reached some measure of professional accomplishment, even if she has daily logistical struggles reading news when it is subject to both government censorship and regular power outages. Abigail, like Nia, becomes mysteriously ill.
Both Nia and Abigail have the same double-diagnosis. Each woman is pregnant, and each has tested positive for HIV.
Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter’s script follows Nia and Abigail for a few days after they learn of their diagnosis. The audience meets other characters (also played by Redman and Perry) learning of their news. Both women live in cultures that have little room for discussion about people, especially women, living with HIV/AIDS.
Except for one part. Nobody seems reticent to discuss who it is to blame for the transmission. Both Nia and Abigail find that that responsibility has landed solely in their laps. A snide nurse—more concerned with her lunch order than with thoughtfully counseling her patient—chides Abigail for allowing herself to acquire HIV soon after becoming pregnant, though Abigail has known about either of her conditions for mere moments.
Chillingly, the script suggests that the state would look the other way should Abigail’s husband, Stamford, beat her in retaliation, though it’s most likely that Stamford is the one who transmitted the virus to her. Darnell’s mother also lashes out at Nia when Nia comes to her for help, though she professes some knowledge of her son’s promiscuity.
Tim Rhoze’s always-masterful direction moves the play, which is 90 minutes long with no intermission, along briskly, but he knows when to slow the pace and allow the audience to take a few breaths, usually when one of the characters reaches a moment of epiphany or catharsis.
Redman and Perry both tap into the emotional urgency Nia and Abigail sense when they receive their diagnosis. Though each is partnered, each is self-reliant—Nia is a survivor of the foster-care system, while Abigail has risen up fairly high professionally; it seems she is the major breadwinner in her family. So both women are appropriately resentful when their fates are handed over to systems and individuals who are at best indifferent to their plights.
Redman is mesmerizing as Nia; her youthful naiveté is as believable as is her wariness of both Darnell and her family and friends. Her performance as Darnell’s mother is as mesmerizing in it chilliness. Perry’s Abigail is equally wary and perceptive, but that stems from her years already spent managing both a career and a family in a culture that has made that especially difficult. Her performances as the aforementioned nurse and a local herbalist (colloquially “the witch doctor”) are especially memorable as well.
In the Continuum is in a few ways a relic of 2005: There are some references to Oprah and the characters use flip-phones. But its central themes have become incredibly current, given the U.S. government’s defunding of both USAID and various domestic-focused organizations trying to eliminate new HIV transmissions. Unless there is major action, we are quickly rocketing towards these days once again thanks to our societal short-sightedness. In the Continuum has likely never been as pertinent.
In the Continnum runs through Aug. 9 at Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre, Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St. in Evanston. For tickets and information, visit fjtheatre.com.