Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Ruined, the riveting tale of a group of emotionally torn and physically brutalized women who reside in a whorehouse in a war-ravaged African nation, made a strong opening on Friday night (May 6) under the sure hand of director Caroline Jackson Smith. Set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the play is battery-acid strong, emotionally challenging, and certainly a welcome relief and much-needed antidote to the Tyler Perry buffoonery black audiences have been subjected to of late.
The Goodman Theatre in Chicago commissioned playwright Nottage to travel to Uganda in 2006 to interview women as a background to the writing of the play, which was first performed at The Goodman in 2007. Since then, this riveting work has been in continuous production in Europe, the United States, or usually both.
Sometimes favorably compared to Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, (another play about women and war) Nottage’s words force the brutal impact armed conflict has on women front and center in the consciousness of the audience in a disturbing and horrifying manner… and the cast of this production is up to the ugly task. Ruined is not a pretty tale, but one that nonetheless must be told and retold until we at last come to our senses in regards to the futility of war.
The always able Sheffia Dooley, in the role of Mama Nadi (the main character the play revolves around), exemplifies the resourcefulness, courage, wit, and wisdom women of color have had to possess and demonstrate since the beginning of the African Diaspora. The play unerringly makes the point that, indeed, while men seem to delight in the taking of lives, women are always trying to find ways to somehow preserve them.
Playing opposite her is the confident Peter Lawson Jones, who can now claim to be a Karamu veteran. His character, Christian, whom Mama Nadi — sometimes affectionately, sometimes derisively — calls “Professor” struggles to find ways to manage his tumultuous environment (or remove himself and Mama Nadi from it)… something Jones’ previous work experience has ably equipped him to do. At this stage of his thespian career he probably should be looking for a one-man-show vehicle, which he now is eminently prepared to handle. He’s turned pro.
The entire cast is kept on point and on time as the play moves briskly along at the exacting pace Jackson Smith has set for the production, and not one of the characters ring hollow or untrue. To single out any member of the supporting cast would do an injustice to the remainder… they all were great, thus proving the adage “there are no small roles, only small actors.” All of them were big on opening night.
But one person on the stage — not an actor — has to be singled out: Papa Assane M’Baye, born in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. If you want to witness pure, unalloyed musical genius first-hand then go and listen to this master drummer at work. M’Baye’s drumming alone is worth the price of admission.
Ruined runs through Sun 5/29 @ Karamu House. http://KaramuHouse.org.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.