Ruined by Lynn Nottage (at the Almeida)

"A small mining town deep in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Mama Nadi’s bar her rules apply. No arguments, no politics, no guns.

When two new girls tainted with the stigma of their recent past arrive, Mama is forced to reassess her business priorities and personal loyalties. As tales of local atrocities spread and tensions between rebels and government militia rise, the realities of life in civil war provide the ultimate test of the human spirit."

Background: As Ann's birthday gift Gary and I took her and Camilla to see Ruined at the Almeida. I'd managed to shield myself from all the reviews - something which I felt pretty comfortable doing in this specific instance seeing as the play arrived in London as the most awarded American play of 2009 - and had only a sketchy idea of the play's content. I don't remember having a stifle a tear in the first half, but almost every scene after the interval proved to be a tear-jerker and I had to stay seated during the standing ovation in case I lost all self-control and turned into a heaving, snotty sobfest.

Impressions: Although the production and play have their faults, the material is both thought-provoking and deeply moving. In what felt at first like a series of relatively independent vignettes, each character reluctantly reveals the ways they have suffered and been 'ruined' by the conflict in the Congo. The two most striking revelations involving the sassy, imperious and seemingly indifferent, my-father-was-the-chief Josephine and, in the play's final scene, Ma Nadi herself. In the first, Josephine is the centre of attention in the bar, dancing with abandon as the crowd cheer and applaud. As the pace of the music quickens, however, her movements become less calculated and elegant and more desperate and frantic. The horror on her face before the other girls move in to rush her behind the bar is more eloquent than any dialogue the character could have been given. Here in one simple, wordless scene the most flimsy of characters becomes a heartbreaking casualty. Wonderful and chilling.

In the second scene, Ma Nadi reveals her refusal to accept Christian, the trader's marriage proposal rests on the fact that she too is 'ruined' - mutilated by rape and torture. The scene suffers from a kind of predictability, but the actors pour so much into their performances, channeling so much raw emotion, that to feel nothing is to reduce oneself to a robot.

What I'm left with is a reminder of the terrible suffering endured by millions of people every day. I am so so lucky.

Also: Play has so many echoes of Mother Courage that it has to be a direct inspiration. And, lo, here is an excerpt from the Guardian's interview with the playwright: Ruined, which opens at the Almeida next week, was originally intended as an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage by way of Congo. In transporting the action of Brecht's play, set around the Thirty Years' War in 17th-century Europe, to 21st-century Africa, Nottage wanted to expose the horrors endured in a country ravaged by war – and especially by women.

Review Excerpts: "This is a play not just about brutality but also about survival, as Indhu Rubasingham’s exemplary production makes clear."