Ruined

Mama Nadi runs a jungle bar and brothel in the Congo during civil war. She keeps the peace among clients from opposing sides, including government troops and rebel fighters, who choose from the women she offers. Many of these women were raped and tortured before being forced into prostitution, and the play looks at what that does to them.

Nottage built the story from interviews she carried out with Congolese refugees. It mixes humor and song with postcolonial and feminist arguments, drawing on the tradition of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage while focusing on the lives of women who have been broken by the conflict.

Nottage is the playwright behind Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fabulation and Intimate Apparel. Intimate Apparel won the American Theatre Critics' Steinberg New Play Award and the Francesca Primus Prize. Ruined won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.