Ruined By Lynn Nottage: Summary

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Ruined by Lynn Nottage was published in 2010, detailing the horrific realities of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The production takes a strong focus on the lives of two Congolese women who were both physically and psychologically damaged during the war, then “saved” and brought into a brothel for safety. Nottage pieces these devastating events together in a logical and entertaining fashion in order to create a melodramatic tale by personalizing issues, building compassion, and helping the audience understand their past. The play opens up with an inciting incident that grabs the attention of the audience and introduces the conflict. During this scene, Christian, a salesman, comes into Mama Nadi’s bar with cigarettes, …show more content…

One purpose is to enter another person’s experience, which is obviously done by allowing the audience to understand the crazy messed-up lives of Salima, Sophie, and Mama Nadi. More significantly, this play allows the audience to understand how cultural events impact people on a personal level. To do this, Nottage takes the events of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and ties it directly to the lives of the characters. Doing this allows the audience to see just how brutal the detriments of the war were on Congolese women at the time. Without this art of storytelling, many audience members probably still wouldn’t know how Congolese women were treated by soldiers, and the extent to which the soldiers would go in order to make their lives miserable. To tag along with this, Nottage assists the audience in understanding their past. The civil war was a recent event, so this story allows many of the audience members to better understand events that happened early on in their own lives so that they don’t make the same mistakes and are better informed on important issues in their society. Even for audience members outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo, global issues are still relevant, so it’s important for them to understand events that are going on in the world around them, which Nottage’s production of Ruined allows them to

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