Ruined

My cousin is visiting, we're watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince while drinking spiked eggnog. I don't exactly know what's in this, but it's good. Not sure this is the best situation to be writing about Ruined, but I'll try.

Even with the help of alcoholic eggnog, it might be too soon to write something that isn't analytic about this play. I loved how it was so jaded and broken, but still naive and idealistic.

Salima's last line, just before her death was so haunting.

"You will not fight your battles on my body anymore."

There's some pretty serious rhetoric in this play, but it doesn't detract from the characters' story. But the wording of Salima's last words makes it seem like a willing sacrifice. She knows she cannot have the baby because Mama Nadi will throw her out, but she can't go with her husband because she won't survive the prejudice of the village. So she choses death. But in a way, she is the sacrifice. Once she dies the violence within the play ends. Instead of making a pure triumph for women, Nottage shows their destruction. That makes the message more powerful, I think. If we see the anguish and the horror we are more aware of the problem.

But how much can we understand this problem? It's something that we cannot imagine. Something so personal and so invasive that how could we possibly be able to contemplate it? Maybe we have to have something like with Brecht was trying to do, total destruction of comfort and normality. Maybe that's the only way we can come close to understanding what these women are going through.