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Lupita Nyongo Breaks Barriers On Broadway In ‘Eclipsed’ As ‘The Jungle Book’ Rakes In Millions At The Box Office

By Phyllis Asinyanbi
Published on: 12:27 PST, Apr 23, 2016

Lupita Nyong’o has kept busy since Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Oscar-winning actress is the featured voice behind Raksha, the adoptive wolf mother of the main character in the Disney remake of The Jungle Book. To date, the film has pulled in $314.2 at the worldwide box office.

Meanwhile, Lupita is starring in Eclipsed, a drama she helped bring to Broadway about women who are captured and held as sex slaves of a rebel commanding officer during the Liberia civil war. A cast of five women star in the play, and it is also written and directed by women–a first on Broadway.

The show has been running since March 16 and is scheduled to end on June 19. One of the New York Times toughest critics, Charles Isherwood, has given Nyong’o rave reviews, noted NPR.

“For all its harrowing power, Eclipsed, headlined by the Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, one of the most radiant young actors to be seen on Broadway in recent seasons, shines with a compassion that makes us see beyond the suffering to the indomitable humanity of its characters… Ms. Nyong’o, simply superb, illuminates her character’s conflicted feelings with pinpoint clarity.”

Nyong’o won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role as Patsey in Twelve Years a Slave. The actress said it was disconcerting to ascend suddenly from obscurity to fame. She welcomed the change of depicting an alien in Star Wars and being a voice in The Jungle Book, NPR added.

“I think subconsciously I was excited by work… that was not about my body. It wasn’t about my skin or my body or its economy, whether we’re talking about slavery or we’re talking about fashion or about celebrity. When Star Wars came about, it excited me because I got to get back to acting in a way that was free of that body, and I got to inhabit a different body.”

Lupita was speaking about the violation of Patsey, in Twelve Years a Slave, and the positive attention Nyong’o received after winning the Oscar, which included topping “People’s World’s Most Beautiful List 2014” and becoming one of the faces for Lancôme cosmetics. She is also speaking of the historical dehumanization of black women in the United States from the slavery era until now.

Women of African descent are often revered for their body parts but not looked upon as wholly human. The sub-human treatment is apparent in the way other cultures have latched upon the beauty of the black woman’s skin color, full lips, and round buttocks, often going to the extreme of enhancing themselves artificially so they, too, will have these features, but at the same time rejecting darker-skinned individuals. In Hollywood, this is manifested by not having dark-skinned beauties star in movies. When asked if the alien role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the only one available to her because of Hollywood’s lack of roles for women who look like her, Nyong’o’s response was no.

Lupita wants to de-emphasize the physical and inhabit the roles she plays with a sense of otherness, as in stepping out of Lupita and stepping into someone or something else. Yet, the character she has chosen to bring to life in Eclipsed brings to mind the one she portrayed in Twelve Years a Slave. Similarities are an abused woman who is taken advantage of by a powerful man. There are differences, including, a different continent, another country, and Nyongo’s character, referred to simply as “Girl,” taking up arms and inflicting violence on others to regain control of her life, which does not end well, per the New York Times.

Lupita Nyongo said she needs a break from the painful dramas and says after Eclipsed ends, she would like to perform in a comedy. No doubt, the Yale-trained actress would do well, and perhaps before she does, she’ll win a Tony.

[Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty]

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