{"id":1404,"date":"2016-12-30T00:32:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T00:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2016-12-30T00:33:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T00:33:15","slug":"12-plays-of-xmas-3-ruined-by-lynn-nottage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2016\/12\/12-plays-of-xmas-3-ruined-by-lynn-nottage.html","title":{"rendered":"12 Plays of Xmas: 3 Ruined by Lynn Nottage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"img_20161229_084255343-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember\u00a0how I missed the Pulitzer-winning Ruined<\/em><\/a> when it played in London in 2010. It was at a favourite theatre (the Almeida) and starred favourite actors (Jenny Jules, Lucian Msamati). Maybe I was busy, or distracted. Maybe I didn\u2019t feel great urgency simply because Lynn Nottage\u2019s 2008 play sounded too much like an adaptation of Mother Courage<\/em>, taking Brecht\u2019s dogged anti-heroine from Europe\u2019s Hundred Years\u2019 War to the contemporary Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n

Mother Courage<\/em> is terrific, but can seem like one dominant image played at epic length: Courage trudging forward with her cart in pursuit of profit, discarding children and principles as she does so. Ruined<\/em> also has an unsentimental woman at its centre \u2013 Mama Nadi, an indomitable barkeep \u2013 but time and place are far tighter. The action doesn\u2019t move from the bar. It doesn\u2019t have to \u2013 Mama doesn\u2019t have to go looking for conflict and atrocity, they will come to her regardless. She\u2019s no soft touch, but no monster either. Nottage shows what desperation to survive might do to people \u2013 turning them into self-protecting monsters, scrabbling at the far reaches of extremity. But she also allows them stubborn acts of self-determination, even in extremis. They aren\u2019t simply what war makes them.<\/p>\n

\"Jenny<\/a>

Jenny Jules and Rachael Holmes in Ruined at Arena Stage, 2011. Photo: Joan Marcus<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018Strong female character\u2019 has edged from recommendation to cringe in the past year or two. It has become a lazy phrase to suggest any fictional woman with a hint of hinterland, allowed to be more than wife or mother. It should be a given, not an exception. And, anyway, strong doesn\u2019t always mean complex \u2013 but the terms are close in Ruined.<\/em> The choices Nottage gives her characters are stark, harsh, bitterly compromised and uncompromising. Even in reading, you\u2019re thinking about bodies: injured, abused, traded, defended. Women\u2019s bodies are images for Congolese conflict, but are also particular. Mama and the working women in her bar carry atrocities in their bodies \u2013 which a theatre audience can\u2019t see, but cannot ignore. It\u2019s a truly compulsive read. Hope I get to see it sometime soon.<\/p>\n

Sample stage direction\u00a0<\/strong>‘Fortune flips over the table. Mama grabs a machete. Christian brandishes the whisky bottle like a weapon.’<\/em><\/p>\n

Sample quote\u00a0<\/strong>Mama: ‘I didn\u2019t come here as Mama Nadi, I found her the same way miners find their wealth in the muck. I stumbled off of that road without two twigs to start a fire. I turned a basket of sweets and soggy biscuits into a business. I don\u2019t give a damn what any of you think.’<\/p>\n

12 Plays of Xmas<\/strong>
\nI have, surprise, a lot of books. And I have, surprise, not read them all. As old year ticks into new, I thought I\u2019d spend a couple of weeks reading an unfamiliar play each day. Twelve plays, 12 posts: welcome to 12 Plays of Xmas.<\/p>\n

Owners by Caryl Churchill<\/a>
\nBirth by TW Robertson<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t remember\u00a0how I missed the Pulitzer-winning Ruined when it played in London in 2010. It was at a favourite theatre (the Almeida) and starred favourite actors (Jenny Jules, Lucian Msamati). Maybe I was busy, or distracted. Maybe I didn\u2019t feel great urgency simply because Lynn Nottage\u2019s 2008 play sounded too much like an adaptation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[402,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-12-plays-of-xmas","9":"tag-theatre","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1407,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}