Now that I am employed and Sezze Sun has ended I have time to go to the theater again. This afternoon I went to a sold-out matinee performance of Ruined, the Pulitzer-winning play by Lynn Nottage. I had obviously heard good things about it and knew that it’s closing next week and I had recently received an email offering me $30 tickets because I’m under 30 (yay!). It’s set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and centers around a bar/brothel, the women who work there, the men who frequent it. I thought it was great. Very compelling and well-acted, moments of humor and also of true terror. I kept thinking about all the horrible things that could happen to the characters and then hoped that they wouldn’t happen (which indicates a certain amount of compassion for the characters). I also loved that the lead character Mama Nadi was a cynical madam (or ‘madamoiselle’ as she corrects one of the characters) constantly pushing away the affections of her admirer. Her headstrong, no-nonsense approach to business was equal parts savvy and emotionally cool. But when moments of tenderness shine through they are even more powerful.My only issues were that the accents often seemed a little muddled (I noticed in the program that the dialect coach’s credits seem to focus more on plays set in the South, as opposed to the Congo) and because of so much double and triple casting among the male actors, I was occasionally confused by which side of the fighting the men were on.
I haven’t heard anything about a London production, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s at the National or the Royal Court within the year (or possibly the Young Vic). I think it would transfer well and winning the Pulitzer probably doesn’t hurt.
