The
numbers are staggering. This is not simply a feminist issue – if the facts were
more widely known it would not only help the victims of rape (and tribal, Hutu
v. Tutsi, violence, and the rush for the DRC’s minerals), but also help us gain
some perspective on the world’s other conflict hotspot. The Middle East has
nothing of comparable depravity.
The
extraordinary thing is that Ms Nottage has been able to make a play of this (now
at the Almeida until 5 June, www.almeida.co.uk), and an enjoyable one, too. This
owes something to Robert Jones’s clever revolving set, which gives us both the
outside and interior of Mama Nadi’s bar-brothel near a mining village in a part
of the DRC. But also Nottage has created full, rounded characters, played with
total conviction by a cast brimming with talent. At least three of the superb
actors in this all-but-one-black company have just graduated from drama
school. The playwright and
director Indhu Rubasingham have managed to stage a play that leaves you feeling
that hope is not dead and pleasure is still possible, no mean feat when more
than one of the characters indicates the meaning of the title. Joyfully dealing
with the genuinely horrible, Jenny Jules as Mama Nadi shows star quality – and
so do several others: Pippa Bennett-Warner as Sophie, the educated “ruined”
girl, Michelle Asante as the married woman Salima and Kehinde Fadipe as the
apparent good-time girl, Josephine. The boys are terrific, too, though some
look almost too fetching in their camouflage uniforms and combat boots.
Some
of my theatre critic colleagues have complained that the upbeat ending rings
false, and others have even felt that it betrays the misery and wickedness
depicted in the rest of the drama. I’m not sure. I felt at the time that the
wit and flashes of good humour of Nottage’s dialogue showed that Mama Nadi has
a soft centre missing in her obvious predecessor, Mother Courage, that makes
her a bit more like the hard-bitten professional women in 1930s Hollywood
Screwball comedies. It’s true that the final scene is not as strong as what
went before; but it’s an exhilarating evening for all that.
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