| . | 03/01/2009
Ruined
By: Victor Gluck
Saidah Arrika Ekulona as Mama Nadi and Russell Gebert Jones as Christian
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
You might not expect a play about the victims of the war in the Congo to be anything but grim but you would be wrong. Playwright Lynn Nottage has followed her impressive and award-winning Intimate Apparel with another gripping play which again has juicy roles for women. Ruined, receiving its New York premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I in a co-production with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, is an engrossing and spellbinding play about the human misery caused by civil war.
The leading role of Mama Nadi, the owner of a bar and brothel in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, gives Saidah Arrika Ekulona a bigger than life role as a kind of African “Mother Courage,” and Ekulona gives an unforgettable performance. This is a play that reduces a complicated war to the personal and accessible stories of its victims and its survivors and makes us feel that we are right in the middle of the events on stage. Kate Whoriskey’s production of Ruined begins on a very high pitch and never lets up for a second. Welcome to Mama Nadi’s bar.
Mama Nadi is an indomitable spirit, offering beer and women to the soldiers passing through a small mining town in the Ituri Rainforest, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, she does not feel she is exploiting her girls. In fact, she believes that she is saving these women from a conflict that has been called the bloodiest since World War II. Christian (played by Russell Gebert Jones), her local supplier, nicknamed the Professor, arrives with two women in tow who can’t go home to their villages. Salima (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) has been kidnapped by soldiers and held as a sex slave for five months. Christian’s niece Sophie (Condola Rashad) was been raped and mutilated, hence, the title of the play. Christian insists that Mama Nadi do him a favor and take them in.
At first, Mama Nadi refuses to have more mouths to feed but eventually he wears her down, and she agrees to use the “ruined” Sophie as a singer and helper around the bar. Various groups of rebel soldiers pass through looking for each other and Mama Nadi must keep a low profile as she alternately serves these enemy groups. However, when she discovers Sophie’s agenda and Salima’s husband comes looking for her, Mama Nadi’s own existence may be endangered. Almost in passing, Nottage slips in the shocking stories of Sophie, Salima and Mama Nadi’s most popular girl, Josephine. By the time we hear their shocking revelations, we have been captivated by Nottage’s storytelling and very human characterizations.
Ekulona’s Mama Nadi is a force of nature, a woman who is completely in control, and who seduces with her personal charms. On stage almost throughout the entire play, Ekulona is riveting as the play’s dynamic center. Her tender side is revealed in her relationship with Sophie who comes to be a kind of daughter to her, and Rashad gives a beautifully delineated performance as this damaged woman who has so much to offer. Jones as the gentlemanly Christian is able to hold his own opposite Ekulona’s bigger than life Mama Nadi. Bernstine’s Salima and Cherise Boothe as Josephine are also moving and commanding portraits of war’s indomitable survivors. Chris Chalk and Kevin Mambo as warring rebel leaders help add to the play’s tension. Tom Mardirosian adds comic relief as a white mineral trader.
Derek McLane’s wonderfully atmospheric setting invites you into Mama Nadi’s bar and makes it seem as though the stage and audience are one. The set is surrounded by trees which gives a hint of the unseen and frightening world outside. Paul Tazewell’s African costumes add just the right note of color to the wooden bar setting. The lighting by Peter Kaczorowski helps turn the stage into various places in and around Mama Nadi’s bar. The original songs with lyrics by Nottage and music by Dominic Kanza as well as the live music by Simon Shabantu Kashama on guitar and Ron McBee on drums turn the play into an inspired concert.
Ruined by Lynn Nottage is at the same time a document of human suffering as well as a tribute to the spirit of the survivors. Kate Whoriskey’s production makes this uncompromising material into an absorbing story, a window on another world, contemporaneous with our own. If for no other reason, see Ruined for Saidah Arriba Ekulona’s magnificent and commanding performance in the play’s central role.
Ruined (through April 12)
Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center – Stage I, 131 W. 55th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-581-1212 or http://www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com
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