Study Questions

• Kate Whoriskey, in her introduction to the play, mentions a Rwandan telling Nottage that “We must fight to sustain the complexity,” which became the production’s mission. What threatens complexity? Why is it difficult to maintain? Why is complexity so important that it needs fighting for? How has Nottage answered this summons in Ruined? What complexity does she capture in the play?

• Read some news coverage of the Congo. How are situations there described? What is left out that is addressed in Ruined?

• How does Nottage create a sense of place? How does the Congo that she evokes stereotypical of Africa and how is it not?

• Since Nottage considers her initial plan to adapt Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children “to be a false frame,” how does she structure Ruined to be “true to [her] experiences in Uganda” (xi)?

• What is traumatic fistula? How does it affect a person physically and psychologically? How does it affect a person’s family and friends? Why does even the word ruin which already means “to damage irreparably” seem inadequately abstract and euphemistic in the face of the actuality of these women’s experiences?

• How does Nottage attempt to stretch the word ruin, to make it reach, or at least suggest more closely, the degree of destruction caused by violent rape that results in traumatic fistula despite its shortcomings in signification? How might an actor or actress performing the piece do the same?

• Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression” makes several observations about the African American sense of drama and word play. Which characteristics are also in evidence in Ruined?

 Study Questions for the music and songs in Ruined

• Can music alone convey meaning? If so, how?

• What is the relationship between the words/lyrics and the music in these songs?

Study Questions for “You Come Here to Forget”

• What is “liquid night” in the song “You Come Here to Forget”?

• In the phrases “you come here to forget” and “the weary ask to be forgiven,” what is the difference, if any, between “to forget” and “to be forgiven”?

• Why are “spirits rise” and “tongues loosen” paired together? What is the suggested correlation between uplifted feelings and ability to speak? 

• Why does Nottage use the word “spirits” in this song about drinking away one’s sorrows? Do other words like “all forgiving,” “judgement,” and “the ending” sound out of place sung in a bar? Why or why not?

• How is freedom described in this song? What does it mean to be free? What is one free from? What is one free to do? Why is it desirable?

• Look at the range of emotions mentioned in the song. Which are desired, which are not?                

• What is the power of music as enumerated in the song? Compare this to the function of music in the play. Consider also how characters use music. What do they use it for? What can it achieve?

Study Questions for “A Rare Bird”

• What qualities do listeners have who can hear the rare bird? What does this say about types of listeners? Why does it matter which type hears the bird?

• What words are used to describe the bird’s song? What do they convey about the significance of the song?

• Explain the relationship between the bird’s being seen and heard.

• Discuss the threat of danger for the bird. What are the stakes for speaking? What are the costs of making a sound?  

• As Sophie nears the end of the song with the lines “And yet the bird / Still cries out to be heard,” Mama Nadi walks onstage and greets the pygmy’s caged parrot with “Hello. Talk to me. You hungry? Yes?” (38). How does the song’s lyrics comment on the play’s dialog and vice versa?

• What happens at the end of the song? How do you know?

Study Questions for “A Warrior”

• Explore the various meanings that “play” may have in this song.

• What contrastive images does the opening simile evoke?

• What does “a warrior knows no peace” mean (63)?

• What is the difference, if any, between a monsieur, a warrior, a lion, and soldiers? How effective are the labels? How do the terms shape our perception of the entity named? What, for example, does “warrior” conjure up in your mind? What feelings or impressions? How do these senses of a warrior compare to the character actually being described in the song, i.e. someone who is “free to play” when the lion is asleep? If you were to replace these glamorous terms with words more accurately descriptive of the personages in question, what would they be?

• Examine phrases like “drape your weariness on my shoulder” or “sweep travel dust from your heart” (64). Why do you think the lyrics are so highly metaphorical? Is the song allegorical? If so, what symbolic narrative is it dramatizing?

• Because of the song’s fast tempo, the upbeat accompaniment, the festive atmosphere, and the drama onstage, the soldiers (and the theater audience) might not hear the words being sung, words such as “We party as the world falls apart” (64). However, the performer—in this case, both Mama Nadi and Sophie—certainly would appreciate the meaning as she sings. What is the effect of this reverse dramatic irony on the meaning of the play?