Women 'Ruined' by War

2 years ago

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Mary C. Curtis

National Correspondent

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The face of Neda -- caught and killed on the front lines – came to represent the human cost of Iran's political turmoil. A woman, paying the price a war she didn't make. There's a reason why that sentiment has become almost cliché: It's true in wars across the world.

In a holiday weekend of New York theater-going, it is "Ruined" that haunts. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Lynn Nottage looks at women, barely surviving, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The play, at the Manhattan Theatre Club, is not the usual crowd pleaser.

In "Ruined," the women of Mama Nadi's brothel have been damaged in a war that uses rape as a weapon. Journalists have written about the atrocities. Documentary filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson examined the situation in "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo." Nottage interviewed the kidnapped, traumatized women who have suffered physical and psychological violence. Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times has shared the women's stories. An NPR reporter talked with Nottage and linked to a scene.

When the character of Salima details soldiers "smiling wicked school-boy smiles" and kidnapping her in her garden, when she speaks of her five-month ordeal and her rejection when she returns to her husband, the audience's silence is punctuated by gasps.

OK, this may not sound like a recommendation, but it is. I could escape into a sunny New York afternoon, but the women represented in "Ruined" can only hope to survive. They cannot be forgotten.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: Democratic Republic of the Congo, DemocraticRepublicOfTheCongo, Lynn Nottage, LynnNottage, Nicholas Kristof New York Times, NicholasKristofNewYorkTimes, Ruined

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