Frank triumphs again with The Convert

Photo by Tony Nelson

It’s been a decade since Frank Theatre tackled the work of Danai Gurira, but the wait for The Convert was more than worth it.

Frank’s 2010 production of Eclipsed was -- certainly in the mind of this reviewer – one of the best shows of that year. The Convert promises to be same for 2020. It’s a smart, heartfelt, and searing look at the toll colonialism has on the people where “civilization” has come.

The play finds us in Rhodesia at the end of the 19^th century, and in the comfortable home of Chilford, an African who has converted to Roman Catholicism. He struggles with money and his mission – to convert the souls of the villagers around him to the true faith.

Into this world comes Jekesai, a young woman hoping to escape an ugly, forced marriage to a man who already has more than half a dozen wives. Chilford takes her into his home, and discovers that she is a quick study, especially in matters of faith. Jekesai – renamed Ester – converts and engages in the same crusade of Chilford.

All around them, however, is unrest. The British have turned the landscape into mines and pushed the local men to work in them. Taxes have begun to crush the locals, who need to pay just to have a place to live on lands they may have occupied for centuries.

That boiling anger turns to the locals who have “sided” with the British, Chilford and Ester; and their Westernized companions Chancellor and Prudence. That anger eventually explodes, which brings the fragile lives these characters have built crashing down around their heads.

Photo by Tony Nelson

Like any play directed by Frank’s Wendy Knox, these are not simple characters and any messages you try to take away from it are fraught with contradictions and troubles. The key for The Convert is one thing that is missing: white faces. While there are no British portrayed on stage, you can feel their weight over all of the proceedings.

Gurira doesn’t paint the traditional African tribes as any kind of paradise (see the forced marriage above) but it is clear that what has replaced it isn’t any better, even if it did bring concrete floors, nice furniture, and cricket.

All of this is brought home by the terrific performances seen from top to bottom in the show. All of the characters are equally well rounded, even Warren C. Bowles’ Uncle – who seems to be just an ogre intent on ruining young Jekesai’s life at the beginning – shows more depth in his later scenes, while the seemingly civilized Chancellor (AJ Friday) shows a darkness that was always there, just beneath the surface. Other performances are equally fluid and rounded, especially that of Hope Cervantes (part of the Eclipsed cast from 2010) as Prudence.


Leads Yinka Ayinde (Chilford) and Ashe Jaafaru (Ester) are the heart of soul of the show. Ayinde shows us the confusion and doubt that lies just beneath the surface of his character, giving this devout man so much soul.

It is clear that Jekesai/Ester is the smartest character in the play, and Jaafaru plays that to the hilt. Her eyes are always soaking up the scene around her, and she makes it clear that her mind is always a few steps ahead of everyone else. All of this gives her final haunting speech all the more weight, as if we are listening in on a tale that has been spoken around fire pits and fireplaces since the beginning of time.

The Convert runs through March 15 at Gremlin Theater.

Satire runs deep in The Ugly One

Photo by Dan Norman.

We all know the bromides about beauty (“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”; “beauty is only skin deep”). We’re told that those who pursue beauty are vapid, vacuous, or vane. Yet we flock to every new technique to tighten our stomachs, erase crow’s feet; or just consume endless programs about those who take self-improvement to the extreme (perhaps hoping to catch sight of a plastic surgery disaster or two).

In other words, Marius von Mayenburg is mining a deep vein in The Ugly One. And that produces theatrical riches in Walking Shadow Theatre Company’s deft production at Open Eye Figure Theatre and director Amy Rummenie.

The story of a “hideously ugly” man whose life is transformed – first for good, and then for something else – by being given a new face fits perfectly with Walking Shadow’s previous work, as the company has long explored ideas around identity and image.

Our “ugly one” is Lette, a research electrical engineer who has created a new… thing that will make things run better than before. He is all ready to deliver the news of the product at a trade conference when his boss and associate spring the news on him: His hideous appearance in no way can be connected with the new creation.

Disorientated and depressed, Lette looks into plastic surgery. More than a few nicks, tucks, and cuts later, he has a brand new face: One so beautiful it could sell the new electric doohickey to an Amish farming family.

At first things are great. Lette’s standing with his job and his wife go through the roof. He even attracts the attention of consumer electronics groupies (including a rich woman and her snide son who are engaged in activities that would make Aleister Crowley blush) on his journeys to different trade shows.

The good times come to an end when Lette notices his face on another man. And then another. And another. Soon, his beautiful face has become common, and – as last week’s news – Lette finds his status tumbling down once again.

While the play is loaded with rich satire, it’s the quality of the characters – and the performances – that makes The Ugly One more than a lost episode ofBlack Mirror.  Sean Dillon leads the way as poor Lette, who is not the most likeable of characters. Still, Dillon makes us feel the character’s pain, temporary joy, and final despair in a way that is nearly heartbreaking.

The rest of the cast (including nice turns from Edwin Strout and Julie Ann Nevill) doubles up for the various characters, with Corey DiNardo particularly good as Lette’s conniving assistant and the rich woman’s son who is able to see the world for what it is.

The Ugly One runs through Feb. 16 at Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis.