**Spoiler-Filled** The ending of RUINED

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 8:23am

Finally saw 'Ruined' at City Center last night -- I thought it was pretty fantastic, until that final scene. I still would unequivocally recommend the show, but if any play / subject matter screamed out for an untidy ending, it's this one, and I felt a bit cheated and pandered to by what I was given.


When Mama gives that explanation about love being a sentiment that can't be afforded in the environment in which they live, and thus rebuffs his proposition, it was heartbreaking, but felt honest/true/appropriate. In my opinion, the play should have ended there (if not the scene earlier). It seemed a bit dishonest/off-putting to have her explain "I'm ruined," thus tidily explaining in standard psychology-101 why she is the way she is, but I could accept it, as it's suitably devastating and kind of wraps up the themes of the play.

However, to have the play end with the two of them getting together, kissing, and having the two girls coming out from behind the curtain looking shocked/smiling -- and THEN having the musicians slowly emerge from off-stage playing music, while the parrot 'adorably' says.. something (I couldn't hear -- the audience was too busy going 'awww' and clapping), just felt like a bridge too far. This is NOT a show where it felt appropriate to end with the audience smiling and clapping their hands to the beat of music being played onstage.

I'm not saying this needed to be a completely relentless downer (though it would have felt true to the material), but to end on such a note of uplift felt incredibly false to me -- especially considering this is something that's still going on in the world today, and not, say, something resolved 50 years ago. The way the play ends allows the audience to just smile that this story got resolved, and not think further about it after they leave the theater. After sitting through most of the production, I expected something more resonant from its conclusion than a vaguely "happy" ending for our lead characters. It's still a terrifically written play, and I wouldn't dispute its Pulitzer win, but if pressed, I'd probably have cast my vote for BECKY SHAW. Updated On: 4/24/09 at 08:23 AM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 8:41am

Did you really leave the theater smiling after this show?

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 8:44am

No. Not at all. But much of the audience did, and the ending absolutely felt like a deliberate/artificial attempt to have the play end on an 'up' note. Just after the first 2 and a half hours of the play, while it's comforting to know these characters we've grown to care for have found some semblance of happiness, it didn't feel particularly truthful/organic to what came before it -- at least not to me. Updated On: 4/24/09 at 08:44 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:00am

I totally understand what you're saying, and respect your disappointment with the ending, but after thinking back on it I like the way it ends.

I don't think having a hopeful ending wraps everything up in a nice little bow. All the problems are still swirling around them; we are just left with a moment of how they survive and cope with their struggles. So much tragedy had befallen the characters that there seemed no reason why they should keep on living.

Ultimately it's a story of survival, and part of that survival is finding moments of joy amidst terrible situations. The playwright obviously wanted to leave the audience with a sense of hope that the people of the Congo will eventually overcome this and come out stronger for it.

I liked the "twist" that Mama was also ruined. I was so wrapped up in the story I didn't see it coming at all. Mama was a success. She triumphed over her obstacles as a poor, ruined woman, and this is why the ending was happy. Mama, the Professor, Sophie and Josephina were all survivors and I left feeling that they were going make it.

Updated On: 4/24/09 at 09:00 AM

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:08am

"The playwright obviously wanted to leave the audience with a sense of hope that the people of the Congo will eventually overcome this and come out stronger for it."

If that was, in fact, the intention, then it seems like a false, constructed sense of hope that doesn't feel organic to the material, or, to be honest, particularly realistic.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:16am

I mean I don't think the playwright was trying to say that this was a permanent happy ending for the characters. This was simply a capsule moment of happiness that the characters were able to experience in order to get them through everything else.

Perhaps if Mama was a character in "Happiness" she could look back and name this as her happy moment. I don't think it cheapened the experience to allow them one moment of joy.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:19am

If Nottage did ANYTHING, it's certainly not that.

I don't see the ending as hopeful at all. I do understand how the implication of a relationship between Mama and the Professor could be construed as hopeful, but I just don't see how there's any hope there. They live in a volatile place, Mama is ruined, etc.

Personally, I thought the play should have ended at the gun scene blackout.

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:30am

"I do understand how the implication of a relationship between Mama and the Professor could be construed as hopeful, but I just don't see how there's any hope there. They live in a volatile place, Mama is ruined, etc."

Yes, in the larger scheme of things, you're absolutely correct. But choosing to END the play on that note is what struck me as an attempt to close everything on an up/hopeful moment.


"Personally, I thought the play should have ended at the gun scene blackout."

I totally agree.
Updated On: 4/24/09 at 09:30 AM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:33am

And I do know what you mean, as well. What I've noticed in Nottage's work is that she always tries to end everything with a sense of hope.

An unrelentingly bleak, horrifically powerful piece such as this I think in no way is ruined by some small glimmer of hope if we, we being intelligent theatergoers, will realize that this hope will be very short lived.

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:35am

While I don't agree with you completely on that, fair point. But seriously, the f***cking parrot delivering the last line of the play?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:43am

I think the reason I found it "hopeful" was that it ended with the four of them coming together and kind of saying they will be there to protect each other. Mama finally gives in a little bit to the Professor. Josephina seems to have softened towards Sophie.

I think this is why MiracleElixir was saying that people were smiling as they walked out because it gave them a "we're all one big happy family" message. I don't think it goes that far; two seconds later Josephina could be yelling at Sophie again. Still, we are shown that deep down they care for each other, and when the defenses are down they must admit that they need each other to make it.

Yankeefan, you may have thought the play should have ended earlier, but Nottage didn't. She didn't want the audience to leave with those images/words. She left us with the rather happy image of Mama finally giving in to the Professor and dancing. I saw this as a sign that she was breaking down the walls she put up to not remind her she was ruined. She was finally on the path to becoming whole again. I personally find this hopeful.

Updated On: 4/24/09 at 09:43 AM

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 10:09am

Whizzer, I think you're totally correct in finding the ending hopeful. We just differ in that you like it and I think it's a bit bulls***ty.

[April Saul]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 9:27pm

I would also have to admit that the ending was hopeful, but it didn't bother me at all. One of the reasons I went to Ruined is that I'm a journalist, and I went to the Congo a few years back. My story was about a famous basketball player who was returning to his native country to build a hospital, which sounds happy, right? But as I'm following him on this "upbeat" story, I'm seeing all these children crippled from polio, people with lockjaw from tetanus, and just the worst poverty imaginable. So even though technically, my Congo story was "happy," the milieu was so unrelentingly bleak as to render the actions of the famous athlete a drop in the bucket...which is exactly how I felt about the two characters connecting at the end of Ruined. A small glimmer of humanity amid the horror, but certainly no sugar coating or happy face...

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 4/25/09 at 1:04am

The ending of "Intimate Apparel" isn't all that hopeful.

I kind of agree, and I kind of disagree. While, I think ending on a less hopeful note would have been true to the material, I can see the reasons for not doing it. The ending didn't bother me too much, but I kind of expected it. I mean, the whole play those two characters are flirting. It would almost seem rude to not have them come together in the end. And knowing Nottage - I saw "Intimate Apparel" a few times - I could totally predict them coming together. She tends to go more towards the "soap opera" twists and things.