This actress embraces a tale of forgotten women
WATERTOWN - To prepare for her role as a pregnant runaway slave, Uzo Aduba, a Medfield native who is starting to make a mark on Broadway, spends hours on the Library of Congress website, reading and listening to the raspy, withered voices of former slaves.
They talk in painstakingly honest detail about growing up as property, being traded, sold, whipped, and forced to work and breed like mules. Lost to their families, wondering if spouses, parents, and siblings are dead or alive, they speak plainly but tell horrifying stories of America's past. In some cases they were left so broken that they simply block out the worst of the memories, Aduba says during a break at New Repertory Theatre's rehearsal space.
"Those are the ones that are just a lot to take," the actress says in a deep and powerful voice, preparing to be outfitted in a long brown weathered skirt and cream-colored peasant-style shirt for her title role in "Dessa Rose," which makes its New England premiere at New Rep on Wednesday.
"There's one, her name is Harriet, and she goes on for pages and pages about, 'Oh, it wasn't so bad,' " Aduba says, shaking her head. "She was a real young child at the time, and it's heartbreaking in that sense partly because in a lot of cases you can hear that they would rather talk about something other than the hurt. They always refer back to when they were children in slavery . . . how they got to play with the master's children in the house. They didn't have any duties because they were too young. They want to talk about this small chapter of their entire experience, and you almost have to ask, 'When did you die? Because it almost sounds like you didn't live from the time you were 10 until you were emancipated. There are years there that just go missing.' "
"Dessa Rose" was adapted from Sherley Anne Williams's novel by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who also collaborated on "Rag time" and "Seussical." Set in 1847 in the pre-Civil War South, the musical is about the unlikely alliance of two women: Dessa, a pregnant runaway slave condemned to death for leading an uprising, and Ruth Sutton (played by Leigh Barrett), a high-society white woman who was abandoned at her Alabama plantation by her ne'er do well slave-owning husband and finds herself aiding escaped slaves. Due to be hanged, Dessa gets a momentary reprieve until she gives birth as her captors choose not to destroy "perfectly good property."
The play starts with the two women in their 80s and unfolds through a series of flashbacks, ballads and gospel-style anthems, revealing the treacherous journey that brought these two women together.
The theme of empowered women thrills Aduba, who had a supporting role in her first Broadway show, the Tony-nominated "Coram Boy," last year, and who returns to Broadway in "Godspell" later this year.
The first line in "Dessa Rose," a powerful gospel-style lyric, she points out, is: "We are descendants of a long line of strong women."
" 'Dessa Rose' is a story about women forgotten over time," she says, sitting next to the production's inspiration wall, a collage of photocopied "Slave for Sale" and "Wanted Escaped Slave" signs, as well as pictures of slaves and plantations in the rural South.
"In our history it's not often you hear the story of these women, and they lived and died in this country," Aduba says. "And the play itself is not overly sentimental. It's not 'Oh poor, poor women.' This story chooses to depict women as strong human beings.
"It is so rare that you find a play where the two title characters are both women," she emphasizes. "And it's not a woman playing second fiddle to this man story or woman playing wife. No, these women are built on their own two legs and walking forth on their own two legs. That's a thrilling opportunity."
Barrett, costumed for a rehearsal in a 19th-century-style white dress, complete with laced corset, says she too has tried to read and listen to the slave narratives. "I can't get through them. I just cry and cry and cry," she says, her eyes welling up moments before belting out a duet with Aduba.
Of the musical, Barrett says, "It has some darkness to it, but it also has some joy and hope. . . . Ruth and Dessa have similar struggles as women, as human beings. It's about how much we need each other to get through it all."
New York dreams
Aduba graduated from Boston University and moved to New York a little more than four years ago. But though she's generally cheerful and talkative, she dodges any question that might reveal her age. (Her MySpace page says she's 97; suffice it to say she's still a 20-something.)
Raised in Medfield by two Nigerian-born parents, Aduba says she is happy to be performing back at home, "where the roots were first planted."
She traces her interest in theater to the day her father, an accountant, took the family with him on a business trip to New York. She was in the fourth grade.
"We stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square," she reminisces, her eyes brightening. "All I remember is when we pulled up in the cab, like, all the lights everywhere. I can remember Times Square, like I can literally remember it like it was yesterday. . . . I have a distinct physical memory of always having my head up because everything seemed like it could almost touch the sky."
There was no turning back.
"It was so funny because I don't know if it was foreshadowing or if that moment began the kinetic energy that resulted in my arrival in New York, but I remember being like, 'I want to live here.' "
But convincing her parents and her tightly-knit extended family was going to take some doing. Her parents came to the United States from Nigeria in the early 1970s, right after the Biafran civil war, she says. Her family "was, and still is, like many immigrant families. All they hope to produce is a better life for their children than they had, as far as education and cultural experiences."
In her home, that meant Aduba and her four siblings should focus on advanced degrees and profitable professions.
"Coming from a traditional Nigerian family, it's like you aim for doctor, lawyer, something in the health services," she says.
But after seeing "Rent" at the Shubert Theatre as a high school sophomore, she made up her mind for good.
Aduba, who had talked of becoming a lawyer, went home to tell her father and mother, a retired social worker.
"I think they were probably not supportive for two days," she recalls, laughing. "I said, 'Mom, I want to act,' and she was like, 'Humph.' "
Now there are no two people who are more supportive, she says, suddenly growing emotional.
"My mom, she'll come to a show 100 times if there are 100 performances." Aduba pauses as the tears start to run down her cheeks.
'It has to happen'
When Aduba moved to New York, she shared her cousin Obi Iroku's two-bedroom apartment in Queens with another couple.
"She let me stay in her apartment for four months, in the same bed as her," Aduba recalls. "She kept me, paid for me to live while I found my feet. I had $200 and I had to spend $71 on a monthly subway pass to go look for a job."
She started waiting tables - and waiting in long lines for auditions.
"When you are looking for both a survival job and acting work it does become a little daunting," she says. "You're sitting there wondering, 'Well, I hope I get seen today,' and there's a line of people who look like you and people who have even more polished things to show."
But Aduba says her determination to make it was unshakable.
"I think I was so green that I didn't even entirely think that this was not going to happen," she says. "If I'm out hitting the pavement, taking my voice lessons, working out, knowing my lines, as long as I do it, I know if I work hard it has to happen. I have to believe that."
And last year, it did.
"My agent called me," she says, her eyes filling with tears again. She had landed the role of Toby in "Coram Boy."
"I was in my bedroom, and I just immediately started crying," she says. "I called my mom and told her I booked a Broadway show. I asked her, 'Are you proud of me?' and she said, 'Don't you know I am always proud of you?' I can't even believe it. I still can't. You know, God works. He works."
Despite nominations for six Tony awards last year, "Coram Boy" faced budget problems and shut down after only six weeks of regular performances. Still, the experience was a thrill.
"Looking out, the view is the same, like any other stage. Lights blinding you," Aduba fondly recalls. "But it's the feeling. Yeah. I can't describe it. It's just the feeling."
When it closed, Aduba thought, "Well, when will I be here again?" she says. "Finding a role that is appropriate for you, be it the right age, type, vocal quality. Every theater has its season, and you may not fit in any season.
"And then this opportunity to do 'Dessa Rose' arose, and I was like, 'God' " - Aduba looks upward - "You are just showing off now." 