The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will open Lynn Nottage's award-winning play Ruined, directed by Liesl Tommy, at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 27 in the New Theatre. The play will run through October 31. Ruined joins Lisa's Kron's Well, also playing in the New Theatre, and Hamlet, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Pride and Prejudice, running in the Angus Bowmer Theatre.
Ruined is set in the African country of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the rape of Congolese women amid an ongoing military conflict has became a systematic, deliberate and often public way to instill terror. Here, Mama Nadi runs a bar, and while she protects the women she hires, she also profits from them.
Nottage noted in an interview for OSF's Illuminations that her play emerged after taking two trips to east Africa in 2004 and then 2005. Her focus was the stories of the Congolese women, whose narratives had not been reported by journalists covering the fighting in Congo. "Those were the voices that resonated most loudly," she said. "They were composites, but I also took some poetic license with those particular characters. It's not a documentary play.
"I wanted the audience to imagine what it meant to be ‘ruined,' not just physically, but emotionally as well," she said. "If I had graphically described what happens to Sophie, people would focus on that aspect of her abuse and not...invest in her journey as a character. It becomes overwhelming."
And so Ruined is a celebration of the resilience of women in Congo and focuses on the relationship between them. Amid the pain and fear, there is laughter and vibrant Congolese music composed and designed by Broken Chord Collective, with choreography by Randy Duncan.
As director Liesl Tommy writes in her director's notes: "One of my great challenges as an African artist is to get people to care about African stories. The average person is, in my experience, somewhat numb to the decades of news about strife and brutality in various African countries...And it seems very far away." But it's not so very far away, she says. This war is about territorial control, and with control comes access to minerals, among which is coltan, a key element in cell phones and computer chips. So as Tommy points out, "We all carry a little piece of this war, daily, right in our pockets and purses and homes and offices...and ...through [Lynn Nottage's] play we reconnect with our humanity and those people in that faraway war."
The cast for Ruined features Kimberly Scott as Mama Nadi, Chinasa Ogbuagu as Salima, Dawn-Lyen Gardner as Sophie, Victoria Ward as Josephine, Tyrone Wilson as Christian, Jimonn Cole as Jerome Kisembe, Kenajuan Bentley as Osembenga, Armando Durán as Mr. Harari, JaMario Stills as Simon and Aide Worker, Peter Macon as Fortune, and Chic Street Man on guitar and Kelvin Underwood on percussion.
The design team for Ruined includes scenic designer Clint Ramos, costume designer Christal Weatherly and lighting designer Robert Peterson. As noted, Broken Chord Collective has composed and designed music and sound. Lue Morgan Douthit is dramaturg on the project, and Evamarii Johnson is voice and text director.
The Goatie Foundation is the Lead Sponsor for this production, and Betty and Jack Schafer and POP are Production Partners. Jackson County SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) is Community Partner.
For more information and ways to donate to organizations addressing sexual assault in our local region and rape in DRC, please check our website in the Learn More section.
Tickets remain available for preview and opening performances at the following times and dates: Wednesday, March 24 at 8:00 p.m., Friday, March 26 at 1:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 27 at 8:00 p.m. Call the Box Office at 541-482-4331 or visit www.osfashland.org to order online.
