jdcruined

 The lights dim. A girl in a bandana and long skirt walks on stage. “Welcome to Mama Nadi’s place” she says. She gives a short introduction, and without any further delay, __Ruined__ begins. This was an interesting play, and for such a low budget, it was well done.

 The set consisted of nothing but a couple of tables, chairs, a bar, and a parrot cage with a sheet draped over it. The cast was able to take these few props and create an entire of spectrum of emotions for the audience using these and their voices and actions. Although simple, the set was very efficient for the play.  I did have a problem, however, with much of the dialogue of the play. There were adult themes, which is natural when the play is about a whore house, but there were vulgar comments and sexual innuendo in places which seemed unnecessary. There was also strong language present throughout the play, which didn’t bother me when it was necessary, but the play was filled with this kind of language in places where it was neither appropriate nor necessary.

 There were also many aspects of the play that I didn’t understand. I never really understood what the term ruined meant. I assumed that it meant they had some kind of venereal disease, but I was never sure if this was the right definition of the word in the play. Another thing that I didn’t understand was the parrot. The parrot had almost no significance in the play, and was only mentioned a couple of times. Was the parrot a metaphor for animal savagery? Mama Nadi said that the parrot was wild and would bite anyone who tried to touch it. Even when Sophie, the most pure hearted character in the play, tried to touch the parrot, it bit her. Aside from that, the parrot had no real significance in the play and I couldn’t understand why it was in the play.

 The accents of the actors also made the play a bit hard to follow at times. They did add to the setting of the play, but also made it more difficult to understand the actors at some times. During some important moments, I was having difficulty understanding what the actors were saying, causing me to miss things which may have been important to the action of the play.

 The greatest strength of this play in my opinion were the costumes. The costumes were perfectly designed to appeal to the audience’s view of Africa and place them in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each character also had a costume which revealed a bit about his or her personality as well. Sophie and Salima’s outfits were larger and covered much more than Josephine’s clothing. Sophie and Salima were shown as innocent girls who were forced into actions such as working in a whore house. Their costumes fit this perfectly. Josephine’s clothing also portrayed her as much more sexually open and ready to engage in anything by choice. She acted in a much more provocative nature, and she even removed her shirt at one part in the play. Her clothing went very well with her personality, and caused the audience to know create preconceptions of her nature based on their own personal bias before ever hearing her speak or act.

 The clothing of Mr. Harari was particularly efficient in portraying his nature. He was given more American style clothing, causing the audience to view him as more sophisticated based on many of the American prejudices which cause us to think of ourselves as more advanced and sophisticated than the African people. His costume was an all white business suit, which also appeals to our prejudice. In America, most people view businessmen as people who will do nearly anything to reach the top and gain what they want, and this is exactly what Mr. Harari does. He tells Josephine that one day he will take her to the city in order to give her the illusion that he loves her, but he never has any intention to do so. Near the end of the play when Mama Nadi asks him to take the girl, he even says that Josephine would never last in the city even though Mama Nadi is referring to Sophie rather than Josephine. After Mama Nadi walks away to get Sophie, he is faced with the decision of waiting for her and maybe spending a bit more time there or taking Mama Nadi’s only possession of real value and running. When faced with this decision, he chooses the selfish one which not only gets him away from the “uncivilized” place he is in and gives him even more money.

 The actors were also great and perfectly cast for each role. Every character’s appearance fit their personality. The small and petite Sophie perfectly matched her quiet and innocent nature. The large and very intimidating man who played Commander Osembenga was also matched very well, giving a feeling of power and control through his appearance and actions. The director did a very good job in casting this play with appropriate actors for each role.  Another well done part of the play was the lighting. The lighting ensured that only the stage was lit up, and easily allowed the audience to see what was happening on stage. The only problem with the lighting was during the scene changes when the lighting was dimmed, but the actors were still clearly visible on stage moving objects around. This was distracting and seemed to take away a small part from the previous acts.

 One very distracting thing was the sound during scene changes. At every small break, the same song was played. Although it was a song which many people would probably associate with African culture, playing it every single time began to get annoying and I was expecting to hear something new every time, but nothing new was ever played. However, the boom box on stage was very clever and gave the feeling that everything was happening on stage and not in a booth behind the audience.

 For a low budget production, I think the __Ruined__ was very well done. If the show had a larger budget, I believe that it would have been much better, but the low budget caused it to merely be adequate despite the best efforts of the actors and the people who worked behind the scenes.