NEW YORK: Lupita Nyong’o is a red carpet darling, effortlessly stunning in a Calvin Klein gown or in advertisements as the face of Lancome. So it may come as something of a shock to see her make her Broadway debut in a cheap cloth skirt and filthy Rugrats T-shirt.

Nyong’o loses herself utterly in the searing and stunning play Eclipsed, which opened on Sunday at the Golden Theatre in New York, also marking the important Broadway bows for playwright Danai Gurira and director Liesl Tommy.

Oscar-winner Nyong’o (12 Years A Slave) plays a 15-year-old known only as The Girl who finds herself enslaved in a rebel compound during a bloody civil war in Africa. The five-member cast — all women — is a true ensemble.

The play is set during the end of Liberia’s 14-year civil war, which ended in 2003. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor and rebel groups opposed to him including LURD — Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy — were accused of atrocities, including murder, mutilation, rape and using child soldiers.

Eclipsed takes place in a bullet-ridden hut on a LURD rebel base headed by a commanding officer, the unseen leader called “CO.” He has captured two “wives” — Saycon Sengbloh plays Wife No 1, clinging to the status it offers, and Pascale Armand plays pregnant Wife No 3 as a girlish woman insecure of her looks. Wife No 2 (Zainab Jah) has left to join the soldiers.