#Play Lynn Nottage

OCTOBER

by Lynn Nottage

Finished: 18.10.2022
Genre: play
Rating: C-
Title: Ruined (9781559366298)

Bad news: 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama…unfortunately I found this just an average play.
It did not feel like a prize winner!

Personal: Lynn Nottage remains a formidable playwright but she really disappointed met with Ruined.  I KNOW she can do better so

…I recommend reading her play  SWEAT a much better play!

by Lynn Nottage

Finish date: 21 February 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: A++++++++

Good news: Structure: Now this was a real puzzle! Act 1 and Act 2 start the first scene in 2008…then the rest of the act is a flashback to 2000. Act 2 does end with 2 scenes in 2008 to give the play a feeling of closure, bookends the last scenes with the same characters that started the play: Chris, Jason and their parole officer, Evan. You get the feeling that these 2 young men are just out of prison for ….what? Read the play! Every time I read a play I learn more information that helps me read novels. Study one genre….and learn more about another!

Good news: Dialogue: We get a realist picture of life in a factory town…this is a “slice of life” play. The location reminded me of the Pennsylvania town depicted in the movie Deer Hunter . I always like to put faces on names….and in the play Sweat I could use some of the characters from that movie to breath life into the characters! Oh, I must watch that movie again!

Good news Location: Ms Nottage selected one of the poorest towns in USA in 2017 as the backdrop of the play: Reading, Pennsylvania. We walk into a blue-collar industrial town bar…a place where the factory workers would congregate.

Good News: Writing style: Ingenious how Ms Nottage creates two worlds: inside the bar, the lives of the characters and outside the bar by introducing the “radio news” before each scene. You can just picture barflies hanging over their beer listening to things that are beyond their home grown troubles (Wall Street Bailout, Bush administration, Obama-McCain debate).

Good news: Social commentary:  this play had everything that would push the buttons of working class folks: black promoted to management, factory moves jobs to Mexico, union puts a headlock on the workers and wages are going to be slashed.

Good news: Characters: are from ethnic backgrounds including 6 men and 3 women. There is a deep feeling of racially-related disagreements that destroy friendships and turn into violent conflicts.

Personal After reading this play I was so impressed by Ms Nottage. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice in 2009 for Ruined and in 2017 for Sweat and she thoroughly deserved these accolades! While reading Sweat I had to remember a poem by Y. Komunyakaa Fog Galleon The poet describes the return to a industrial hometown USA. in just a few words he summed up what I felt after reading this play:
The whole town smells like the world’s oldest anger…..that turns workers into pulp.