By Nelson Pressley
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, November 14, 2008

A new play can't get a much better showcase than the documentary work "Seven" received at the Harman Center. The one-off performance Wednesday night was introduced with a letter of recommendation from the absent but extremely supportive Hillary Rodham Clinton. Then, when the actors finished a little more than an hour later, five of the actual women portrayed -- including an anti-corruption politician from Guatemala and a Pakistani woman who has drawn international attention to the horror of "honor crimes" -- took the stage.

Uplift, anyone? During the brief remarks afterward, the stories in "Seven" (a collaboration among seven playwrights and the seven activist women whose stories they tell) were neatly summarized by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) as "pain to passion to power." It was impossible not to be inspired by the widely varying examples of courage that the project corralled.

The show was the centerpiece of a benefit for Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit interested in developing women leaders, and the piece might well be heard from again. Anna Deavere Smith, whose journalism-based theater is a clear antecedent for "Seven" (as is "The Vagina Monologues" -- it's a growth genre), is among the playwrights distilling these experiences into drama. Even in bare-bones form -- empty stage, scripts in hand -- the chronicles commanded attention.

It helped to have a top-flight cast. Heather Raffo played Afghanistan refugee worker Farida Azizi with the same passion she brought to her acclaimed Iraq-themed solo show "9 Parts of Desire," while Terry Donnelly, veteran of Dublin's Abbey and London's National theaters, offered a fierce portrayal of Irish activist Inez McCormack. All the distinctive performers bristled with purpose, even Mahira Kakkar as Mukhtaran Mai, the reserved Pakistani woman who challenged the brutal traditions of rape as social punishment.

Mai's experience is the emotional heart of the show, which is full of eye-opening facts -- how rampant the battering of women is in Russia, for instance, and how children get addicted to opium early in Afghanistan.

The script is based on interviews, with each playwright matched to a particular subject: Smith, for instance, wrote of Hafsat Abiola, daughter of Nigeria's assassinated president, and Catherine Filloux -- who has dealt with Cambodia in previous projects -- was matched with that country's Mu Sochua, now a parliamentarian who has been fighting rampant sexual exploitation.

That these experiences, delivered in accents from around the globe, are rendered as interlinked rather than as sequential stand-alone tales is certainly much of the point (solidarity!). It is also the show's dramatic challenge. The piece moves fast and jump-cuts abruptly at times; a more fully realized visual production might help sharpen the arc and focus of each woman's saga.

As is, director Evan Yionoulis kept the staging dynamic, as the performers sometimes took roles in each other's accounts, and the activist aesthetic made the evening personable but pointed. "Seven" was persuasive in its twin convictions: that there is much work yet to be done on what Clinton's letter termed "true gender equity" -- and that ardent, informative drama can do its part.

Seven, by Anna Deavere Smith, Ruth Margraff, Gail Kriegel, Susan Yankowitz, Carol K. Mack, Paula Cizmar and Catherine Filloux. Directed by Evan Yionoulis. With Betsy Aidem, Mercedes Herrero, Rachael Holmes and Mia Katigbak.