Ruined

The First and Second Congo Wars, sometimes collectively referred to as "Africa's World War," claimed the lives of more than five million people from 1998-2003, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. (And that's not including the 1994 Rwandan genocide that set the war in motion.) As in all wars, however, life, or some form of it, kept clicking along amidst the bullets and blood. Lynn Nottage's play Ruined, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize, is a fascinating, despairing, horrifying, funny, hopeful look at shellshocked lives. Set in a Congolese jungle-store-cum-brothel, Ruined depicts the effects of the war on a small community of women centered around the charismatic, cynical madam, Mama Nadi. What makes the play so compelling is the diversity of emotions on stage --- it would be easy for Nottage to give audiences a ceaseless dirge, but instead we get joking and singing and dancing, all entertaining and ominous at the same time. It made for an illuminating and thrilling night.

Photo: thanks