The Convert

Goodman Theatre, Chicago

(312) 443-3800

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The third act of The Convert hints at the great play that might have been, said Justin Hayford in the Chicago Reader. The title character, a young African woman living in the 19th-century British colonial outpost that today is Zimbabwe’s capital, chooses to defend a cousin in the murder of a white mine owner and thereby unleashes “a political hurricane.” But the audience has known Jekesai for two hours by then, and little of dramatic interest has occurred on stage since she fled from a forced marriage and took refuge in the home of a Christian missionary. We see Jekesai (Pascale Armand) make a quick study of Scripture, and we learn eventually that a violent rebellion is brewing outside the mission’s doors. But playwright Danai Gurira consistently populates the stage “with viewpoints rather than people.”

The characters may be archetypes, but they also evince a “palpable humanity,” said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. The Africans in the play all are “suffering in different ways from the clash of their native culture with the well-spoken brutality” of British colonialism. This includes the Anglophile missionary Chilford Ndlovu, played by LeRoy McClain as a “mostly well-meaning soul” who thinks he is aiding in the birth of an enlightened meritocracy. Armand is equally effective as Jekesai, who recognizes eventually that the land’s Christian colonizers don’t always follow Bible teachings. The Zimbabwe-born Gurira may have taken on almost too much, but The Convert still rates as “a gutsy, exceptionally skilled attempt to wrestle with some of her country’s demons.”