Pulitzer-Prize winner playwright Lynn Nottage on her new play Ruined
Acclaimed playwright Lynn Nottage brings her prize-winning Pulitzer play Ruined to the Almeida Theatre. It runs from Thursday 15 April to Saturday 5 June. Set in a small mining town in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruined follows the fortunes of bar-owner Mama Nadi as she takes in two young women fleeing the atrocities of civil war.
Lynn Nottage tells us more about the inspiration behind the play, her role as a playwright and what it feels like to win the Pulitzer.
Catch a Vibe: Many of your plays, including Ruined, deal with women who have to face the consequences of either their own actions or the situations that they find themselves in. What is it about the circumstances of women’s lives that inspires you to tell their stories?
Lynn Nottage: I am a woman and as such I choose to tell stories that have a specific resonance for me, and those stories often happen to be about women. The human condition, whether we’re talking about men or women, continues to perplex and confound, and as a writer I use my pen to help me explore the difficult and delicious hows and whys. I believe that the role of an artist is to have an active dialogue with our culture. We can engage in conversations on the stage that might be hard for people to have in their every day lives.
CAV: Your last play performed in London at Tricycle Theatre was Fabulation, or the Re-education of Undine. It’s a social satire. How do you think a British audience will respond to Ruined which is vastly different with its hard-hitting themes of wartime rape and brutality, politics and civil war?
Lynn Nottage: I was surprised by the generous way in which audiences embraced Fabulation, and I am eager to see how they’ll respond to Ruined, which is darker and more serious in tone. The plays both have morally ambiguous black women at their core; women who at once entertain and challenge audiences. Both plays look at women who make questionable decisions in order to survive. My experience with Fabulation showed me that there is a real hunger to see complicated black women placed centre stage. I think British audiences tend to have a wonderful curiosity, and as such I am hopeful that they’ll be willing to go outside of their comfort zone to meet the women who inhabit Mama Nadi’s small bar in a mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
CAV: When you were in London recently preparing for the opening of Ruined at the Almeida Theatre on 15th April, did you have time to catch any black British theatre? What did you think of it?
Lynn Nottage: In the next couple of weeks I am going to make an effort to see as much theatre as possible. I am particularly eager to see what’s happening with British black theatre. I caught Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Disconnect, both of which were wonderful and showcased many talented actors of colour.
CAV: Ruined is an adaption of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. What came first the idea to adapt the play or the need to tell the stories of the Congolese women?
Lynn Nottage: America was at the beginning of the controversial war in Iraq, when I became interested in telling the story of women caught in the middle of armed conflicts. I turned my attention to the DRC, because I felt as though it was a neglected story in the major media. Mother Courage provided a structural window into the world of war. I ultimately abandoned writing an adaptation of that play because I felt that there was a story very specific to the region that was not being told. I felt as though there were gender specific issues that Mother Courage never addressed.
CAV: What first sparked your interest in becoming a playwright?
Lynn Nottage: I’ve always been a storyteller, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I discovered that there might be an audience for my stories beyond my family. I love the collaborative nature of the theatre. It is one of the few mediums where the work is completed in the moment. A play doesn’t fully take it’s formal shape until it has an audience, and as such it continues to evolve from production to production.
CAV: Which other African-American playwrights influenced you or did you look up to in your early career?
Lynn Nottage: I grew up reading the work of African American female writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, Louise Meriwether. They were the first storytellers who I looked to for inspiration.
CAV: You’ve won many awards throughout your career. How did you feel when you won the Pulitzer Prize for Ruined?
Lynn Nottage: It was thrilling to win the Pulitzer for a challenging political play like Ruined, particularly because it’s about African women, and as we know stories about black women rarely get seen or recognized in the mainstream media.
Very good interview. Lynn Nottage is an amazing talent.
Shalom x