PERFORMER SHOWS HOW TO SEE OURSELVES IN OTHERS

Luciana Hudson has been spending a lot of time lately with 10 or so unique personalities.

Among them are a 6-year-old girl; a 92-year-old woman; a victim of domestic abuse; a woman who, Hudson says, is "never happy about anything"; and, even, the snake in the Garden of Eden who, it turns out, was female.

Today and Friday, Hudson will introduce the rest of us to this disparate cast of characters when she performs "Ms. China Presents Mirrored Images of Self," her one-woman show at Reed Whipple Cultural Center.

Hudson -- Ms. China is her performing name -- is a writer, director, performer, spoken word artist and African dance instructor who moved from Milwaukee to Las Vegas in 1995.

But her performing career really began in Chicago when she was 11 and, she recalls, an assistant principal at her school "saw me being very loud in the cafeteria."

Surprisingly, Hudson says, "she pulled me aside and said, 'I want you to represent our school in a dramatic competition.' "

The principal gave Hudson a copy of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play, "A Raisin in the Sun." Hudson performed scenes from the play during the competition, and won.

Even more important, Hudson says, "I got onstage and realized, 'Hey, this is a lot of fun,' and stuck with it."

Then, while attending college in Milwaukee, where she was an engineering major, Hudson wrote a play for a student organization.

"After I wrote the play, my adviser said, 'You wrote this?' I said yes. She said, 'You have no business being an engineer.' And, the next semester, I left."

"Mirrored Images of Self" is an adult-oriented work in which Hudson will portray 10 or so characters who, she says, "I just kind of had in my head.

"I'll see somebody and say, 'That person is really funny.' I watch and get their mannerisms, and kind of go home to create this story I've got in my head."

Two of the characters are taken from books by Rhayne Marcella Thomas ("I'm 40! I'm Feisty! And There's a Gray Hair in My What?!?") and Brenda Billups ("Ruminations: Confessions of an Ex-skeezer").

Hudson says that, after discovering the books, she called the authors to ask if she could use them to create a character onstage. Both, she says, gave her their blessing.

Because each character is so different from the others, Hudson says she can explore issues and emotions from a variety of perspectives. But, she adds, "they're all strong. And a couple of the characters are far from perfect, but they're still real, live people that we see every day."

Each, Hudson says, also has something to tell us.

For instance, the 92-year-old woman might tell us that "life is too short; what do you want to do?" Hudson says, while the always-unhappy woman might tell us "there's so much to be grateful for, so why are you so unhappy?"

"Hopefully, when people leave, they saw their own reflection or a reflection of someone else," she says.

The overarching theme may well be that we all see a reflection in the mirror. The important question, Hudson says, is "are you happy with it?"

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.