OnStage: Women in a war zone

As she read a New York Times story two weeks ago about soldiers killing and raping women in the African nation of Guinea, playwright Lynn Nottage became terribly upset. The tragedy that the article recounted -- men in uniform assaulting people in a stadium in broad daylight -- was as horrific as the stories of war and horror that form the backdrop of Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Ruined," which is set in another African country, Congo.

"It's depressing that at this juncture in history, women's bodies continue to be a battlefront in war," she said in a phone interview last week from her home in Brooklyn. "I know that rape has always been part of war, and that it happens in places other than Africa. But the brutality of it, the impunity with which these men acted -- that's just too much.

If there were any silver lining in the dark outrage, it was in the front-page placement of the Times story, said Nottage, who researched her play by conducting interviews with women in Congo. "When I was first doing it five or six years ago, I was hearing these stories completely fresh," she said. "Everything came as a revelation, a shock. And the fact that all of these women had stories that were so similar, so brutal, made it all the more tragic. The play was part of the tipping point."

"Ruined," which won a shelf's worth of accolades, opens today at Mixed Blood Theatre, the first production outside of one that began in Chicago and transferred to New York.

Entrepreneur during wartime

The play tells the story of Mama Nadi, an entrepreneur with a painful past who operates a brothel in the midst of the Congolese conflict zone. A strong and stern woman, she maintains a space that is, in effect, a neutral zone for armed male combatants who must check their weapons at the door. Mama Nadi's brothel is also a way station for her employees, many of whom have suffered terribly and have lost families, not to mention honor, in their villages.

The 2009 Pulitzer citation said that the "searing drama...compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness."

The subject matter may be heavy, but the play is lit with wit, intelligence and humanity, said Regina Marie Williams, who plays Mama Nadi.

"What Ms. Nottage had done with this play is so rich, so authentic and full -- I've never played a character like her before," said Williams, who had a big part in "Caroline, or Change" at the Guthrie recently as the title character's best friend and who has played Dinah Washington at Penumbra Theatre. "It's a beautiful role. Mama Nadi is a woman with a strict code -- but a frightening one, as well."

Story of transcendence

Mama Nadi has been frequently compared to the title character in "Mother Courage" -- another woman surviving the privations of war. Nottage admits that she was inspired by Bertolt Brecht's canonical play -- and that she wanted to correct what she saw as its failings.

"The fundamental flaw with that play is that it is written from a man's perspective," she said. "In a play about a woman surviving war, how can rape not be an issue for a woman moving through a conflict zone?"

For Nottage, whose plays include "Intimate Apparel," which was produced at the Guthrie five seasons ago, "Ruined" arose out of a desire to explore the depths of the human soul in her art. A graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a visiting lecturer, Nottage lives in Brooklyn with her husband, filmmaker Tony Gerber, and their 12-year-old daughter.

"I haven't had a personal story of privation or horror," she said.

The Pulitzer Prize has brought her global attention and nonstop travel, she said. She uses the attention to focus not on herself but on the lives of women behind her characters. She hopes to go back to Congo. She has been invited by a human rights group and intends to free up her schedule to make it happen.

"Rape casts a horrific shadow, and is a significant event in these women's lives," said Nottage. "But what I learned from the interviews with women who walked miles to tell their stories was that although their experiences were horrible, they were not going to be warped by it. I learned from them to not dwell in the moment but to find out how these women moved through their trauma to survive. It has to be a story of transcendence -- otherwise, how do any of us survive?"

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390