Ruined
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to see a staged reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Ruined, hosted by the Enough Project at The Kennedy Center. The theater was packed with many of my Congo friends- policy wonks, activists, researchers, and even Congolese friends I knew in Bukavu. Though the performance was stripped to bare bones- actors in head to toe black, reading from scripts perched on a row of music stands, it took me straight back to Congo.
After countless hours in South Kivu interviewing hundreds of women on “the trouble they got from war”, I have to say, the play was dead accurate. Consistent. This is remarkable, considering the playwright conducted her research in refugee camps in Uganda, many hundreds of miles north of South Kivu where I spent my time. But the stories were the same, the horror painfully common, despite the vast geographical expanse. Nothing in the play was new or shocking. For women to be “ruined” in identical fashion over such a wide ranging area, at the hands of different militias (which the playwright kept vague, I presume intentionally) means despite Congo’s chaos, the terror is clearly systematic.
The acting was near perfect, the story compelling, but my reaction was a surprise even to me. I’ve been absorbing these stories for years, and for the most part I’ve been fine. But the show was unexpectedly painful. I sensed it as the play ended on a poignant, hopeful note, and everyone gathered their things and exited the theater. The actors stood outside greeting guests. For a second, I thought of saying hello and congratulating them. Then I realized I couldn’t, no more than I could indulge my friends in a post-performance rehash of the show. It was too real. So real it stirred something in me that has been brewing over the last few weeks. I made a beeline for the elevator. I knew if I opened my mouth, it would not be able to hold back tears. And crying in public is just not done in DC. So I just shut up, or changed the subject, avoided eye contact, and got out of there.
Tags: Congo, Enough Project, Fistula, Lisa Shannon, Mining, Raise Hope for Congo Campaign, Rape, Ruined