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For Quantum Theatre artistic director Karla Boos, the second floor of the former Lazarus Department store, Downtown, is the perfect setting for a play about two men attempting to exorcise ghosts both past and present.

The space where Quantum Theatre will stage the American premiere of "Breakfast With Mugabe" is in limbo between its failed promise as an anchor store to revitalize Pittsburgh's Downtown commercial core and its future mission as Piatt Place, an upscale office and apartment complex.

"It is a location of urban trauma on the economic level," says Boos, who is directing the drama that opens Thursday.

The enclosed circle of the performance area sits beneath a spiraling and dramatic atrium that bears scars from where the escalators have been ripped away.

Once gleaming white marble floors abruptly give way to bare gray concrete sections exposed by the removal and addition of partitions. Now barren and abandoned, wood-paneled display areas have been stripped of the sweaters, dresses, skirts and jackets that once beckoned to shoppers.

"At first, I thought it represented the hideous luxury of the (Zimbabwe) state house or presidential residence built in a place where the middle class can't afford to buy a loaf of bread," Boos says. "Then, I saw it as a circle of light with the great unknown spreading outside the circle."

When Fraser Grace created "Breakfast With Mugabe" in 2005 for Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, he set his play in 2002 as Zimbabwe prepared for a presidential election that was, by most accounts, orchestrated to keep President Robert Mugabe in the position of power he has maintained since the country received its independence from the United Kingdom in 1980.

Boos first read it because she has an interest in that part of the world.

It's a particularly timely play, because Mugabe recently announced his intention to hold general elections this March. His plan has been violently and loudly opposed by students and members of the country's less-powerful opposition party.

But, it was its drama, rather than its politics and setting, that inspired Boos to produce it.

Largely fictional, but anchored in fact, "Breakfast With Mugabe" focuses on the Zimbabwe leader who has been troubled by a ngozi, a vengeful spirit whose visits are threatening his sanity.

He has summoned a respected psychiatrist to help deal with the troubling apparitions that may be ngozi -- or generated by his guilt for betraying a comrade.

The psychiatrist, Andrew Peric, is Zimbabwean by birth. But he's a white British descendant of the country's European settlers, many of whom lost their farms after independence.

"I responded to it as a theater artist -- the shifting of power (that takes place) without our knowing why. It is an amazing puzzle and contains a shocking event," says Boos. "There's a whole other level emerging with the belief systems of the natives of Zimbabwe. ... To perhaps explore how the traumas of both the white and black natives play out is interesting to me."

Ultimately, Boos says, the play puts its finger on very primitive feelings that are universal, not restricted to the situations in Zimbabwe or Africa.

"At the end of the play, it's two men asking each other for something that is their innate right," she says.

As Mugabe, Boos has cast Don Marshall, whom many will remember for his performances at City Theatre in "Paul Robeson" in 1995 and "The Man Who Lived Underground" in 1993.

Also performing in the drama are Ezra Barnes as psychiatrist Andrew Peric; Rebecca Thomas as Mugabe's much-younger second wife, Grace; and Gregory Mikell as Mugabe's bodyguard, Gabriel Marunda.

As director, Boos is encouraging her cast to show her where this play should go.

"This boils down to acting decisions," Boos says. "It's a tour de force for actors. My job is to provide the circle (where) they can find what's true and real for them."

Zimbabwe

If the Republic of Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe, it's president, are not on your radar screen, the following information should help put the country and its issues on the map.

• This landlocked country in southern Africa is surrounded by Mozambique on its eastern border, South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south west and Zambia to the northwest.

• Slightly larger than the state of Montana, Zimbabwe 's climate primarily is sub-tropical and the terrain is mostly desert and savanna.

• It is the home to Victoria Falls

• Formerly known as Rhodesia, it was chartered in 1889 as the British South Africa Co., which encompassed what would become Southern and Northern Rhodesia. In 1895, the territory was formally named Rhodesia to honor Cecil Rhodes, a British citizen who was instrumental in its founding.

• The population was estimated at 12,311,143 in June 2007. The figure is difficult to establish as 24.6 percent of the adult population is infected with HIV or AIDS, which contributes to a high adult- and infant-mortality rates, low population-growth rate and an average life expectancy of 39.5 years.

• Ninety-eight percent of the population is African, 1 percent is mixed or Asian and less than 1 percent is white. Seventy-five percent of the population is either Christian or practices a blend of Christian and indigenous beliefs.

• The official language is English with Shona and Sindebele also spoken. The literacy rate is 90.7 percent.

• In 2007, the annual inflation rate climbed to 7,634.8 percent.

History

The following information is excerpted from the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook:

• 1923: The United Kingdom annexes Southern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Co..

• 1961: A constitution is formulated that favors whites in power.

• 1965: The government unilaterally declares its independence, but the United Kingdom does not recognize the act and demands more complete voting rights for the country's black African majority.

• 1979: Following prolonged United Nations sanctions and a guerrilla uprising, free elections take place.

• 1980: Rhodesia becomes an independent country and changes its name to Zimbabwe. Since independence Robert Mugabe, the nation's first prime minister, has been the country's only leader (serving as an elected president since 1987).

• 2000: Mugabe begins a chaotic land-redistribution campaign, which causes an exodus of white farmers, cripples the economy and ushers in widespread shortages of basic commodities.

• 2002: Ignoring international condemnation, Mugabe rigs the 2002 presidential election to ensure his re-election.

• 2005: Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party uses fraud and intimidation to win a two-thirds majority in the March parliamentary election, allowing it to amend the constitution at will and recreate the Senate, which had been abolished in the late 1980s. In April 2005, the capital city of Harare embarks on Operation Restore Order, ostensibly an urban-revitalization program, which results in the destruction of the homes or businesses of 700,000 mostly poor supporters of the opposition, according to UN estimates.

• 2007: In June, Mugabe institutes price controls on all basic commodities causing panic buying and leaving store shelves empty for months.

• 2008: General elections are expected to take place in March.

Sources: Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook

U.S. Department of State Background Notes: www.state.gov

Lonely Planet guide: www.cia.gov

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