On Saturday, December 3, 2011, Frostburg State University theater students put on the 2009 Pulitzer- prize winning stage play, “Ruined” in the school’s Drama Theater. Wow, was all that needed to be said about the performance. From start to finish, the play was superb. The acting was three million steps above believable. The set was well designed. The African music, bottles, posters, and costumes all helped to suspend the disbelief of the audience. However, anyone who did not believe that they were in a bar/whorehouse in the Congo was a hard person to convince. The seating and lighting, on top of everything else well-done, made the play feel like the audience was watching reality. I actually felt like I was sitting in the back booth of Mama Nadi’s whorehouse. The prop crew even used real cigarettes in the play. 6 dollars was an absolute steal for a play of this quality.
The play was about a woman named Mama Nadi (Latia Stokes) who housed and worked other women as prostitutes in the war-torn DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). The play is based on the very real conflict that is still going on today in the Congo. Women are raped every day in startling numbers by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The word “ruined” describes the horrible act of scarring a woman’s vagina to the point of deformation done by the soldiers who rape the women. Mama Nadi is a determined woman who refuses to let men help her do anything. She runs her whorehouse with love and compassion, and encourages her whores not to trust men at all. She trains them not to think very highly of men as well. Ironically, she believes her whorehouse, which presents women as possessions and not as human beings, helps repair the war- torn soldiers to good mental health. The play is contradictory of message, but the themes only add to the complexity on display for the audience. Fred Ramsey, a junior at Frostburg, plays a soldier in the play. His passion and intensity help to steal the show for the male character side. He delivers his lines very strongly, and makes a convincing angry soldier. However, the women run away with this play. Not only is Latia Stokes an amazing Mama Nadi, but all of the actresses take their roles above and beyond the call of duty. DeAndriea Norman, Sophie, did it all. She sang, danced, walked convincingly (she had been ruined), and played the role as if she were the character. Jessica Helton, Salima, was an excellent sidekick character to Sophie, but also showed depth of her own. But, my friend Kiara Collins, who played Josephine, really did a good job of playing the villain with a soft side. The play displayed moments of comedy, pain, humiliation, love, triumph, determination, and adult content (rape, gun fighting, and real fighting). All in all, “Ruined” was a huge success. One of the best performances I’ve seen ever, not just on Frostburg State’s campus. A true delight and something I would pay money to watch again.
No comments:
Post a Comment