"Ruined" is a Pulitzer prize winning story written by Lynn Nottage. It tells the story of young Congolese women forced to live a life of servitude to their owner and caretaker Mama Nadi. The story takes place during a time of turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Congolese militias are uprising against the Government whose only retaliation is to fight back. The story core is with the women who are caught in the middle of the vicious feud for control and power of the nation. The women are merely trying to survive in a cruel world that they have unfortunately been raised in and are accustomed to. wile they desire freedom, they know it may never happen and their number one priority is to survive each and every day.
My group and I made the consensus that our universal vision of "Ruined" is centered around a war-torn part of the Democratic republic of Congo. The building, the women, the very culture would be built around this environment, but we also knew that it was important that these elements are not completely shaped by the outside world and still hold their own sense of hope and resiliency.
My part of our vision consisted of the costume designs of the characters. The basic idea of the designs was to give the impression that they were made from very elegant colors and textures. The condition of the dresses themselves would be a vital element to the character of the women; their daily clothes would be run down and worn out as supposed to their evening and working gowns that would be more elegant and beautiful. These gowns/dresses would separate them from the environment that they are so accustomed to and give them their bar a little 'pop' and
make them more appealing to the customers and militants who frequent the place. It's very important to note that the color of each character's piece of clothing is very significant to the inner qualities of the character themselves.
Let's start with Mama Nadi's dress. Elegant, vibrant, and beautiful. In other words, it's a dress that spoke out to me and said that this would fit her best. The color purple (ironically much like the movie of the same name) tells the story of a noble and authoritative mother figure for the other women of the bar. It's a long violet and purple tile texture dress with long loose sleeves making it easy for the actress to move her arms up and down as she pleases.
Sophie would be wearing very dirty, run-down, and worn out clothes during the early parts of the show and whenever they're cleaning; they are brown garments cheaply woven together. Around the house when she's not working, she'll be wearing green and yellow shirts of higher quality, but very simple. These different color shirts would come along later in the story as the development of the character of Sophie progresses. During the busy hours of the night, when the bar is packed with customers, you can see her wearing a red and white dress (white shows the deep seeded and very apparent innocence and purity of the Sophie character and red is her passion and drive and desire to be free).
Salima's wardrobe, at the start of the play, would be very similar to Sophie's, she would be wearing a poor brown garment to work
around the house with and we will see her wardrobe evolve and she will be wearing simple green and yellow shirts just like Sophie. It's not until the night approaches the customers are coming where we see her beautiful green dress elegantly take the floor along with a headband also the color of green with textures of trees on it to symbolize the the jungles of the Congo. Green is the ideal color for Salima as she later reveals in the story that she is pregnant and green is the color of fertility and also youth as Salima is still very young.
Josephine from the very start sees herself as better than the other two women of the bar and thus looks down at them as if they're inferior and not worthy of her attention or respect. She would start off by wearing better quality clothes no matter what the occasion is because shes been with Mama Nadi longer and is Mama Nadi's top girl. She wears an orange and white dress around the house and at night she garners a ravishing black and white dress (White to symbolize her lighter characteristics that shine later on in the story and black for her obvious darker qualities).
The men of the story would be wearing much simpler clothing. Christian would dawn a simple brown suit such as a business man would wear and brown is fitting as it's the color of reliability and stability; Mama Nadi relies on him to get her supplies for her store and he sees himself as stable enough to marry Mama. Mr. Harari would be wearing an Islamic kafia scarf over his head and a Grey suit with a yellow tie (the yellow tie will tie into the story later as he steals a diamond for his own personal gain rather than helping out Sophie; it's the color labeled for cowards, liars, and deceivers).
The militia and the government army soldiers will done traditional military uniforms, except the militia will be wearing more solid green colors as supposed to the government's army that consists of camouflage.
This concludes my part of the unified vision of "Ruined". Thank you for reading. Happy Holidays :-)
Works Cited
Felner, Mira and Orenstein, Claudia. The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation.
"Ruined" poster.
Purple dress picture.
Militia picture.
Green African headband.
No comments:
Post a Comment