RUINED Reviews

[BustopherPhantom]

RUINED Reviews#1

Posted: 2/10/09 at 6:20pm

NY1 [with video] is a RAVE:

"'Ruined' is the kind of new play we desperately need: well-informed and unafraid of the world's brutalities. The cast, under Kate Whoriskey's superb direction, is phenomenal, with stellar performances by Ekulona, Russell Gebert Jones as a traveling salesman who pines for Mama Nadi, Quincy Tyler Bernstine as a girl with a particularly horrifying past, and Cherise Boothe as the embittered and ambitious Josephine.

Lastly, the beautiful and riveting Condola Rashad makes her spectacular off-Broadway debut as Sophie, a ruined young woman who is heartbreaking yet hopeful, a beacon of life force in a hell on earth."

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/theater_reviews/93738/time-out-theater-review---ruined-/Default.aspx

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

re: RUINED Reviews#2

Posted: 2/10/09 at 6:40pm

Random question but are there any gunshots in the show?

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

re: RUINED Reviews#2

Posted: 2/10/09 at 6:45pm

Love me some Lynn Nottage, hope this gets well received!

"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed

[Yankeefan007]

re: RUINED Reviews#3

Posted: 2/10/09 at 6:47pm

Yes, there's a bit of gunfire.

It's a tremendous play.

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#4

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:13pm

Variety is a RAVE:

"Sexual violence against women as a side effect of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the kind of subject most of us read about in a Nicholas Krystof column or watch on a CNN report, shaking our heads in horror before moving on. But in Lynn Nottage's emotionally scorching new play, it's impossible to look away. "Ruined" takes us inside an unthinkable reality and into the heads of victims and perpetrators to create a full-immersion drama of shocking complexity and moral ambiguity. What's more surprising is the exquisite balance the playwright brings -- of brutality and poetry, hope and even humor.

There's nothing preachy or educational about Kate Whoriskey's vividly atmospheric production, which debuted at Chicago's Goodman Theater last fall and now segues, with its formidable ensemble intact, to an Off Broadway run with Manhattan Theater Club. This is muscular drama with real, richly textured characters, driven by powerful narrative momentum, pulsating music and heartfelt compassion. It's not structurally perfect, but it's riveting."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939646.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

[MCfan2]

re: RUINED Reviews#5

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:20pm

WiCkEDrOcKS, you sound like Dorothy Parker in that review where she wrote about how she couldn't stand gunshots in plays.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

re: RUINED Reviews#6

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:33pm

Ha! I hate them.

But I'll hopefully end up seeing this production; I hear it's brilliant

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

re: RUINED Reviews#7

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:40pm

Sorry for the threadjack, I just don't wanna start another thread about the show...but what is RUINED's rush policy? All the MTC site says is the following about a student rush program:

. Student tickets are $25 and will be on sale for all performances based on availability on the day of the performance, up to one hour before showtime.

So I'm assuming they go on sale when the box office is open and stop going on sale an hour before curtain...? One per ID? Any more info on this??

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#8

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:46pm

Newsday is a RAVE:

"'Love is an unnecessary burden for people like us," says Mama Nadi, the shrewd, irrepressible proprietor of a rain forest bar and whorehouse amid the unfathomably, endlessly brutal war in the Congo. Her inventory of women is the flesh that remains after rival militias and government brutes have perfected the use of rape as a deeply personal, social and political weapon of war. The butchers - one indistinguishable from the next - also are her customers.

Their leftovers are the women of "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important play with music that opened last night at Manhattan Theatre Club as a co-production with Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Inspired by interviews the playwright conducted in Africa with Congo refugees, Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey have created a shattering, intimate journey into faraway news reports about tribal horrors fueled by high-tech exploitation of mineral rights."

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/partii/ny-ethoriz6030349feb11,0,7712387.story

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

Updated On: 2/10/09 at 07:46 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#9

Posted: 2/10/09 at 7:53pm

The Associated Press is VERY POSITIVE:

"Nottage, author of such accomplished and diverse works as "Intimate Apparel" and "Fabulation," walks a fine line here. She never allows the drama to veer into soap opera or sermonette. Her dialogue is direct, yet oddly poetic. She's helped by director Kate Whoriskey's vivid, music-driven production, first seen late last year at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

Act 2 wanders a bit, and the play could use some trimming. But despite the horrors that snake through the lives of these women, Nottage's heroine doesn't end up in total desolation. In fact, there's a surprisingly upbeat if not exactly optimistic coda. It sends the audience out with a renewed faith in the ability of the human spirit to endure."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/02/10/entertainment/e161445S17.DTL

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#10

Posted: 2/10/09 at 8:18pm

AM New York gives the show 3 1/2 STARS OUT OF 4:

"Saidah Arrika Ekulona delivers a commanding performance as Mama Nadi that is occasionally mixed with hints of vulnerability. Other standouts include Russell G. Jones as the gentle, nerdy tradesman who begs Mama to move away with him, as well as Condola Phyleia Rashad and Quincy Tyler Bernstine as the young women who must endure Mama’s lifestyle and somehow move on from their painful pasts.

While one can certainly hope that “Ruined” will raise cultural awareness over the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where nine out of ten women have been raped in many villages, the play stands on its own feet as a layered drama of soaring humanity and painstaking character detail."

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/stage/blog/2009/02/theater_review_of_ruined.html

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

Updated On: 2/10/09 at 08:18 PM

[chinkie azn jai]

re: RUINED Reviews#11

Posted: 2/10/09 at 9:08pm

I saw it in Chicago, and from what I remember, the gun shots were only heard in the distant. It wasn't loud at all.

"Chicago is it's own incredible theater town right there smack down in the middle of the heartland. What a great city! I can see why Oprah likes to live there!" - Dee Hoty :-D

[PiraguaGuy2]

re: RUINED Reviews#12

Posted: 2/10/09 at 9:13pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKNZbGjU6Lo

Formerly SirNotAppearing - Joined 3/08

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

re: RUINED Reviews#13

Posted: 2/10/09 at 9:29pm

I love Lynn Nottage's play CRUMBLES FROM A TABLE OF JOY. I hope I can catch it at some point when I go to the city or that they mount a regional production where I live. She is a pretty neat playwright.

"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

[April Saul]

re: RUINED Reviews#14

Posted: 2/10/09 at 9:57pm

I was reluctant to see this, having been to the Congo myself-- which was depressing enough!--but I figured these kinds of reviews were coming and it sounds amazing, so I got a half-price ticket for this weekend a few hours ago using an offer on the nycgo.com website. I didn't think Ruined would reappear on TDF, and I do recommend this discount, though it's only good for a two-week period of time...it works for 30 off-Broadway shows and you don't always have to get the second ticket, just one for half-price! With Ruined it didn't work over the phone, only on the net. Just to provide a cheap "non-student" option here

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#15

Posted: 2/10/09 at 10:19pm

The New York Times [with Ben Brantley] is VERY POSITIVE:

"Ms. Nottage, the wide-ranging and increasingly confident author of “Intimate Apparel” and “Fabulation or, the Re-Education of Undine,” hooks her audience with promises of a conventionally structured, purposefully plotted play, stocked with sympathetic characters and informative topical detail. She delivers on those promises.

Yet a raw and genuine agony pulses within and finally bursts through this sturdy framework, giving “Ruined” an impact that lingers beyond its well-shaped, sentimental ending. The play isn’t a form-shattering, soul-jolting shocker like Sarah Kane’s “Blasted,” another and more innovative study in wartime atrocities (which had its New York premiere at the Soho Rep last year), or an intellectual epic like “Mother Courage and Her Children.”

But precisely because of its artistic caution, “Ruined” is likely to reach audiences averse to more adventurous, confrontational theater. And people who might ordinarily look away from horror stories of distant wars may well find themselves bound in empathy to the unthinkably abused women that Ms. Nottage and the excellent actresses here have shaped with such care and warmth."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/theater/reviews/11bran.html

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

Updated On: 2/10/09 at 10:19 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#16

Posted: 2/10/09 at 10:58pm

Does anyone know of any competition with RUINED for this year's Pulitzer? Or can we just call it now?

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

[BustopherPhantom]

re: RUINED Reviews#17

Posted: 2/10/09 at 11:00pm

Backstage is a RAVE:

"In director Kate Whoriskey's steely and moving production, each member of the stunning ensemble, in addition to the brilliant Ekulona, creates a heart-rending character who will stay with you long after the final blackout. Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Salima delivers a frighteningly detailed recollection of the morning she was abducted by a regiment for their pleasure. Condola Rashad as Sophie, the most damaged of Nadi's women, conveys every violation she has suffered in her painfully real physical life. Her sad smile as she warbles Dominic Kanza's music is devastating. As Christian, the intellectual merchant with a crush on Nadi, Russell Gebert Jones skillfully charts a spiraling journey downward as he succumbs to alcoholism and despair. Cherise Boothe is zestfully nasty as Josephine, the daughter of a former chief, who responds to her fall from grace with bitterness. Chiké Johnson, Chris Chalk, and Kevin Mambo also carve indelible portraits as soldiers and leaders in the mad war.

There are a few slips into familiar territory. Without giving away too much, I didn't quite buy Nadi's last-minute conversion to altruism nor the play's somewhat happy ending. But these minor flaws cannot ruin the magnificent Ruined."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003940281

"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

re: RUINED Reviews#18

Posted: 2/10/09 at 11:03pm

TheaterMania is a RAVE:

"Lynn Nottage's emotionally devastating and spellbinding new play Ruined, now at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage I, is the rare work that succeeds spectacularly both as potent political statement and as riveting drama that should not be missed by any serious theatergoer.

...

What may be most extraordinary about Ruined, however, is that Nottage is able to shine a cold light on on the grim realities for these women without ever lapsing into tabloid sensationalism or the sort of preachiness that is a common pitfall of much politically conscious theater. In the end, the play both informs the audience with torn-from-the-headlines urgency and holds us in rapt attention. "



Full Review

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

re: RUINED Reviews#19

Posted: 2/10/09 at 11:36pm

the only road block I see for "Runied" is that aren't the Pultizer's supposed to be awarded to a work about the American experience?

"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed

[ChristopherDurangFan]

re: RUINED Reviews#20

Posted: 2/10/09 at 11:52pm

It's funny that there's been so much talk about Ruined taking the Pulitzer. While it will probably be (in my opinion at least) the best play of the season, it isn't really eligible for that award, which is to be given to a play that deals with American life. Yes, there have been exceptions, but we can't count on the same exception being made.

[A Director]

re: RUINED Reviews#21

Posted: 2/11/09 at 1:46am

No, you can't count on anything with the Pulitzer. Some plays that won are awful. These are the winners that have nothing to do with American life, Robert E. Sherwood's Idiots Delight (1936), Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night (1941), The Diary of Anne Frank (1955) and I Am My Own Wife. I would also include Teahouse of the August Moon.

[RentBoy86]

re: RUINED Reviews#22

Posted: 2/11/09 at 1:52am

Didn't "Anna in the Tropics" win the Pulitzer? Not to mention the play is awful, but it also takes place in Cuba, right? So I don't see the difference. I know it's SUPPOSED to deal with the "American experience," but that term is so broad anyways.

[Smaxie]

re: RUINED Reviews#23

Posted: 2/11/09 at 3:56am

The wording is "preferably original in its source and dealing with American life" but as stated earlier, exceptions have been made.

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

[Yankeefan007]

re: RUINED Reviews#24

Posted: 2/11/09 at 8:28am

So, with reviews like these, when does the Broadway transfer happen?