Ruined

By Lynn Nottage in Association with Nightwood Theatre
Berkeley Downstairs
Directed by Philip Akin

Obsidian Theatre Company in association with Nightwood Theatre is thrilled to present the Toronto premiere of the award-winning play Ruined. Written by Lynn Nottage (2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and starring theatre and film veterans, Yanna McIntosh and Sterling Jarvis, the story is set in a present-day small mining town in the civil war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ruined follows a young woman’s nightmarish path to Mama Nadi, a savvy businesswoman who, in the midst of a complex civil war, both protects and profits from the women whose bodies have become battlegrounds. At once heartbreaking and captivating, Ruined pays homage to the courageous and resilient women who must piece themselves together after the ruin.

Lynn Nottage wanted to write an adaptation of Berthold Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children set in the war-ravaged nation. Nottage traveled to Uganda to visit a refugee camp where thousands of men, women, and children hoped to avoid the atrocities of the barbaric government and the equally cruel rebel militants