AM+ruined

An Analysis of //RUINED//  by Ang Myers Ruined was a play filled with many adult themes and difficult subjects. Set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a Civil War, it included themes of war, violence, and both psychological and physical rape. The play was performed in the Cellar Theater and consequentially had a simple and efficient set design, light design, and costume plan. As the director, Freda Scott Giles, said, “The burden of bringing out the meaning of the play is placed squarely on the people you see on stage and the people who provide support for them within our modest means.” The play’s success rested solely on the success of the actors, therefore the actors each had to be confident in the purpose of the characters.

I saw the play on Thursday, Feb. 17th. For some unknown reason, the play started about ten minutes late, so I was slightly frustrated about that. However, the delayed start gave the audience an opportunity to examine the stasis of the stage prior to the action’s start. African music was playing, and on the stage were two tables, four chairs, a bar, and a mysterious obelisk draped with a blanket in the back corner. I examined the program while I waited. Knowing absolutely nothing about the coming play, I searched for something in the program that would give me an idea of the storyline. The program art depicts a stoic Mama Nadi sitting in front of a patterned background. While the picture conveys that the play will be based in Africa and have an African American cast, it doesn’t tell us much more. The pictures that are used to advertise a play are very important, and I would have liked to see a more attention-grabbing and powerful picture.

When the play finally began, a woman came out and forcefully told us to make sure that our cell phones were turned off and not to take any pictures. She spoke with an intimidating tone, conveying the idea that if we didn’t abide by her rules, we would be in big trouble. She was in character, which I thought was a nice touch. It became even more apparent that the actress was in character when she turned around and started stacking the chairs, as if she were a worker in the building where the play was set. Her address got me in the correct mood for what I was about to watch. Women were forced to put up with the orders of Mama Nadi and the soldiers, and these beginning lines made me empathetic to the women throughout the play.

The first entrance came from the audience. I was not expecting anyone to walk out of the audience; this entrance was not taken advantage of in Fuddy Meers, the only other play I have seen in the cellar theater. However, the director actually made good use of this audience entrance throughout the play, having people enter Mama Nadi’s restaurant from the outside world via the side stairway. I noticed that no one went backstage behind the side curtains besides Mama Nadi and her girls. Anyone else who visited her restaurant entered from the side stairway. This was an excellent way for the director to portray the fact that everyone who visited Mama Nadi’s was an outsider. They didn’t see what went on when they weren’t there. They were in the same position as us - the audience members. The men simply visited Mama Nadi’s to objectify the women who dance there, and didn’t look past these women’s bodies to recognize that they had feelings and emotions as well.

The actors and actresses all employed African accents. Most of them did a good job, but I sometimes found it hard to understand what Christian, played by Elliot Dixon, was saying. He slurred his words a little bit too much, and didn’t enunciate words that should have been enunciated. He had a strong voice, but I feel like the accent was too much for him to handle. Mama Nadi on the other hand, played by Adetinpo Thomas, did a superb job with the accent. She made it sound natural and her voice resonated throughout the theater. At first, I felt like the person who played Mama Nadi should be older in order to look wiser and more mature. However, Adetinpo held her own and took command of the stage. The way she carried herself across the stage and her facial expressions all made me see why the girls would respect her. Overall, I thought she was very well cast.

I thought the costumes were appropriate for the play, and was impressed at the beauty of Mama Nadi’s dresses on such a low budget. They looked to me to be straight out of Africa. Mama’s dresses were neatly patterned with vibrant colors, and she wore big, earthy-looking earrings. In the first scene, she wore an apron that read, “Tourism is life.” This contributed to the idea that her business could not survive without people visiting. She was a workingwoman, who needed the support of customers to survive. Although dressed nicely, she was not wealthy by any means, and relied on many people for her business to run smoothly.

Josephine, played by Autumn Reeves, was dressed in a miniskirt and tank top, and I thought this made her look like an American teenager. I think her costume was supposed to represent the openness that the girls in Mama Nadi’s shop were supposed to have with all of the men. However, I was a bit disturbed by Josephine’s actions. She danced with her legs open toward the audience and at one point in the play even stripped down to her bra. I realize that the playwright probably wrote the play like this, but I felt that it was unnecessary. The audience realizes that the girls work to please the men, and I was impressed by how much confidence Reeves had to do the things that she did on stage, but it freaked me out a little bit, being so close to the stage, and her open legs.

Sophie, played by Jennifer Latimore, impressed me. She walked with her legs close together as if she were in pain, which made the fact that she needed an operation more believable. Her sorrow after Mr. Harari drove away with her hope of getting an operation really resonated with me as I watched the play. I felt so bad for her, but I believe that what Lynn Nottage was trying to say was that there are all these people who have dreams that will not necessarily be accomplished. We, as audience members, want them to have a happy ending, but in the Congo it doesn’t always happen that way. I certainly was excited when Mama Nadi explained that she would sell her most valuable possession in order for Sophie’s sake, and felt for Sophie as her dream was crushed.

Salima, played by Adedolapo Adekunle, was cast wonderfully. She was an actress capable of showing a combination of vulnerability and real strength. This was very critical for her role. The scene between Sophie and Salima in which Salima describes how soldiers hit her was executed beautifully. First of all, the script was very well written, with repetition at the end of Salima’s monologue to reinforce the harshest parts. A single spotlight was cast down on the two girls, in order for all of our attention to be focused on them. Adekunle delivered her lines perfectly, as if what happened to Salima had actually happened to her. She spoke so passionately and with such conviction that I could feel the heaviness of the soldier’s foot on her baby. Not only were her facial expressions marvelous, but also she made me jump when she screamed about the soldier because I was so wrapped up in what she was saying. As she died at the end of the play, she said, “You will not fight your battles on my body anymore.” This line exemplified the transformation that occurred in Salima throughout the course of the play.

The sound effects used in the play were somewhat effective. In one of the first scenes, Mama Nadi revealed that the covered structure in the back corner of the room was a parrot in a cage. She complained about how annoying the bird was, however, as an audience member, I didn’t hear any noise out of the bird. Obviously there wasn’t an actual parrot in the cage, but the scene would have been more believable if there were parrot sound effects. The onstage slap was executed well – it can be hard to clap at exactly the right time, but the actresses did it right on cue, and if I hadn’t known better I may have thought that Mama Nadi actually slapped Sophie.

The music that the girls played at nighttime was beautiful and I feel like it eased the audience from the intense nature of the subject matter and gave us a brief break from the reality of the world. Just as the music provided relief from the harsh reality of the Congo, Lynn Nottage worked some comic relief into the script, which I was very appreciative of after the heavy and sorrowful scenes. The audience laughed as Mama Nadi diluted the alcohol in order to save money. Another reliever was when Salima, under her breath, called Josephine a bitch, and when asked what she said, simply stated that she had said “thank you”. Listening to the lyrics of the music was another story though – they were quite serious and dark, and foreshadowed the misery that was to come.

Something that I found annoying was that the sound person played the same exact music between every single scene change. It was the first song that Sophie sang, and over the course of the play, we probably heard that song thirty times. I’m not saying that it wasn’t appropriate for the play, but I just think that they should have mixed it up a little bit. I was bored hearing the same song between every scene change, and it made me focus more on the actors rearranging the set (which, needless to say, was not extremely rapid). Disregarding minor details, the collaboration of everyone who worked on the show paid off. It showed us an incredibly painful world full of moral ambiguity and depravity and weaved together a story of humor, humanity and hope.