Renegotiating realism: Hybridity of form and political potentiality in Ruined

Abstract

In her work for theatre, Lynn Nottage articulates connections between bodies, histories, and ethnicities by examining the impulses and institutions that have erased them. Her plays constitute projects of reclamation that sift through the sediment of society to unearth cultural artifacts that have gone missing or unnoticed. Nottage continues this ethic by (re)locating the under-examined experiences of Congolese women in Ruined (2009). The play’s unfl inching depiction of the epidemic of rape plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) 1 during its brutal civil war materialized from a series of interviews Nottage conducted in Uganda with women who survived brutal sexual attacks by Congolese militia. This focus on survivor testimony disrupts the dominant narrative of the civil war in the DRC as a confl ict over natural resources and territory by grafting the violations of these women into a public discourse that has widely dismissed or underreported them. Nottage explained in a 2010 interview that Ruined constitutes an effort to retain the complexity of the situation in the DRC, and that there is more to these stories than strict binaries of rapist/survivor, militia/rebel: “I wanted to paint a three-dimensional portrait of the women caught in the middle of armed confl icts; I wanted to understand who they were beyond their status as victims” (Gener 118). This politic of bringing the experiences of women of color to bear in the theatre has informed Nottage’s story of a masterful seamstress at the dawn of the twentieth century ( Intimate Apparel ), a young woman coming into womanhood and political awareness in 1950s Brooklyn ( Crumbs from the Table of Joy ), and a wife who with one word reduces her abusive husband to a smoldering heap of ashes ( POOF! ). Yet what distinguishes Ruined in Nottage’s oeuvre is her desire for the play to galvanize political action from spectators: “I wanted to have a conversation with an audience who may not necessarily know what was going on, or who does know whatis going on but didn’t feel compelled to act” (Nottage). While an argument can be made that many playwrights considering human rights violations hope their work will bring about some semblance of change in policy or some abatement of pain for the survivors, Nottage, as amply documented in interviews and the introduction to the published text of the play, sought to engineer such outcomes through an ethnographic, activist dramaturgy. For instance, Nottage famously abandoned her initial Brechtian concept for the play’s form out of concern that its didactic, agitprop demands would diffuse the potential for political action, reasoning that, “[people] react more out of emotion than when they are preached to, told how to feel” (McGee 4). 2 Nottage’s intention for Ruined to bring about sociopolitical agency out of the alchemy of dramatic form and political content has garnered a large degree of cultural capital. In 2009, representatives from various human rights organizations as well as United Nations offi cials attended the play’s premiere production at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. A few months later, the United States Senate invited Nottage to testify before the Foreign Relations joint subcommittee entitled “Rape and Violence Against Women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” 3 At a reception following the hearing, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, the actress who originated the role of Salima in both the Goodman Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Club productions, performed the play’s most explicit monologue regarding the sexual and emotional violence in the DRC. 4 Ruined went on to dominate the 2009-10 theatre awards season by earning the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, among others. 5 These instances of the play’s widespread visibility and positive reception by both artistic and political institutions suggest the effi cacy of Nottage’s strategy to instigate political activism through the play’s realistic elements.