For those who haven’t seen this play, they are missing something moving, enlightening, and educational. Ruined, by Lynn Nottage, was brought to the Frostburg State campus by the Cultural Events Series, and many students made their way to the Performing Arts Center to see it. The proceeds from this performance go to a special place called City of Joy, which is a safe place for suffering women can go to start over.
The scene is set with a colorful and misty display, lit by Christmas lights, with music playing in the background. As the audience settles in their seats, a woman steps out and describes exactly what this play is about: the suffering and dehumanization that women experience in a war torn country. She also describes the life of the woman who wrote this play, and how she got her stories by talking to women that live there. She gives the audience a powerful and surprising statistic: “In the last 10 years, 5.4 million people have died in the Congo. 50% of those were children.” The lights are turned low and everyone is prepared for the opening scene.
Mama Nadi, the owner of a brothel that claims to be neutral, is bartering with a man who frequents the place. He begs her to take the three girls he has in his truck, but only succeeds in giving her two. This is a world where chocolate and cigarettes are traded for girls, because they are considered a kind of luxury. One of the girls, Sophie, is ruined, which in the play is defined as girls that are unusable as prostitutes or child bearers because they have been horribly mutilated. Sophie and Salima, the other girl, are very close and talk often. As Salima talks about her life, Sophie reveals her true feelings: “Every time I sing, I pray that the pain will be gone. But every step I take I feel those men inside me, punishing me.” These girls come from villages where they have been exiled, and made to think that by enduring such suffering and rape, they have dishonored their families.
As the audience listens intently, Salima tells the story of how she was taken from her home, and how she wishes she could go back to that day to change it. She explains her experience as “5 months chained like a goat.” Sophie asserts that even though many would tell her otherwise, nothing was her fault. At the end of the play, after horrific events months before, Mama Nadi makes a statement that brings the crowd to tears, surprising them and evoking a strong feeling of sympathy and respect.
Though this play is arguably controversial, and shows the suffering and unfortunate circumstances of women in the Congo, it is an important play for many people to see and they will benefit from this play in gaining the respect and desire for life here in the United States, where many consider it to be the luckiest place in the world to live. By displaying these important and not always well-known issues, this play can also awaken something great and determined inside a viewer, and cause them to help someone else in the world. In most places women fight for professional and domestic equality, but women in these war torn countries fight to protect themselves and their children. They fight to be considered a human being.
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