In a new Huntington Theatre Company production, director Liesl Tommy brings Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play to jolting life with kinetic staging that maximizes the visceral impact of “Ruined.’’
But the director also shows sensitivity in handling quiet interludes (like the one described above) and the play’s flashes of humor. In this, she remains true both to Nottage’s compassion for her characters and to her determination that they be understood as more than just victims. Across the board, Tommy has drawn fully committed performances from the superb Huntington cast, especially Tonye Patano, Oberon K.A. Adjepong, Carla Duren, Zainab Jah, and Pascale Armand.
For the women of “Ruined,’’ trapped in the middle of a civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, survival is not just day-to-day but moment-to-moment. The ultimate survivor is the canny Mama Nadi (Patano), who employs Sophie (Duren), Salima (Armand), and Josephine (Jah) in the combination bar and brothel she runs in a small mining town.
Mama, a no-nonsense businesswoman, practices her own individual brand of realpolitik. Of the civil war, she says: “Who will win? Who cares?’’ All she cares about, ostensibly at least, is money, and that means she will keep providing “beer and distractions’’ to whoever comes into her establishment.
As Mama faces one crisis after another, Patano plays her with the brazen, outsize vigor of a woman who has constructed not just a livelihood but an identity — and she doesn’t intend to let anyone jeopardize either. “I didn’t come to here as Mama Nadi,’’ she angrily informs Christian (Adjepong), the good-hearted salesman who is struggling to win her affection. “I found her the same way miners find their wealth in the muck.’’
