I experienced Lynn Nottage's (shout out Brown alum) Pulitzer-winning masterpiece "Ruined" yesterday, listening to the stories of the characters unfold, and how they came to be here at Mama Nadi's cafe. It's a place that serves liquor and women to soldiers in civil war-torn Congo. There is so much violence and the conditions in which the characters live prove a no-win situation. All are precariously perched in a world where whims have guns and cocks. None of the violence told happens onstage, but it's as vivid as the set and people you see before you. Each person has a story that is unimaginable. And as a collective, you sit wondering how can life possibly ever return to anything other than this? Especially after all they've seen.
You've heard the horrors before in the media. You've felt helpless and wonder how this situation will ever end and how could it even be in the first place. Young boys armed and machete-ing people's heads off and raising it in victory. A woman tied to a tree by a string to her foot "like a goat to a stake" and raped repeatedly for 5 months, returning home then being chased out by her family and community for the shame she brought to them. A woman "ruined" (by female circumcision) and chased out by her community because of the bad luck she brings. Sides in the war changing so fast, sometimes within a day... "leaders" and his men, rising, killing, falling, being killed. The cyclical violence. Chaos. Fear. And more violence. Life costing nothing. One trigger decisions. And you sit there keeping it all together. It's so horrible, you hold tight trying to keep your rational hat on, when nothing is rational. So you listen some more, all the while thinking about the nature of mankind, and how does this problem get solved? Are the conditions the result of post-colonial instabilities exacerbated by the land's wealth of gold and diamonds? Can there ever be any kind of peace on this earth until mankind has connected war with and transcends the conflict embedded within each person, manifested simply and partially in the 7 deadly sins? So many thoughts searching for an out, a solution.
Story after story. Men have it bad, but women have it worse. The men are at their tipping point, and women become their last bastion to empowerment, when there is no other source. By the time we get to the middle of the second act, to the climax of the play, we see blood for the first time, blood from a woman who's just committed her own abortion and screams "stop waging your war through my body." At this moment, you no longer have any control over all you've just experienced, all the information you've taken in, all the images painted in your head. The crushing weight of feeling like there's no way out. All the stories you've heard, the collective psychic pain of everyone in this war, culminate at this moment, and becomes real. I wept out loud. But the women, continue on. They continue to live with the scars of violence in and on their bodies, in their hearts and minds.
We see the girls who dream of love and tenderness through their romance novels. Despite all they've seen and experienced, they can still imagine love. And the most powerful engine of the story that hits you from left field is that of Mama Nadi, cool and strong-willed, hardened. Love has no place in her life. She believes, 'everything is taken away so what's the point?' It's a weakness and a luxury that one cannot afford at this place. She too is hardened by her own history. She fights and fights this traveling salesman who is trying to woo her through the duration of the play. And ultimately, she finally admits that she too is "ruined" and opens her heart to love and vulnerability and salvation.
Nottage is an incredible playwright, deftly weaving together this multi-charactered plot to completion. The interchangeable use of the same male actors covering all the different soldiers, is a very subtle and powerful way of making that statement of there being no sides in this ever-changing war, and no difference between soldiers for the women working in the brothel.
I did a double-feature yesterday and also caught Neil LaBute's highly acclaimed, "Reasons to be Pretty" in the evening. The play had some moments, but overall was subpar. LaBute's really good at breathless, stream of consciousness conversational language and portraying a certain kind of absurdity in relationships. It's enjoyable to watch. One can easily relate and laugh. Good scenes. But I think the audience is conned by this...they clapped after every scene change, egh...because there was no engine in the play. Are we supposed to be waiting for the "lovers" to get back together? Where are we going? Do these characters even really love each other? Do we even care? What's the point of the main story or the secondary story? Is it just to show the expectations of "pretty," the ugliness of people, and thus the irony of the title? The premise was precarious (I think the actors didn't sell it at all) and there was NOTHING at stake, if love or friendship was gained or lost. The characters were completely unsympathetic. I'll be really pissed if it wins anything in tonight's Tony's. There is way too much good work out there.
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