Mama Nadi owns an out-of-town bar in the Democratic Public of Congo; her place, a ramshackle two-sided shack taking up the entire stage, is a welcoming and lively retreat from the civil war which is ripping the country apart beyond its doors. Then the professor pays a visit – he has something in his truck that he thinks Mama will be happy to pay good money for, not the usual cigarettes or lipstick, but female refugees. Mama takes the women in, not out of some altruistic impulse to ease their suffering, but rather to put them to work as prostitutes and hopefully generate some income. Life at Mama's is preferable to the alternative, a life lived ostracised from the community because of being 'ruined' as a result of sexual abuse and mutilation. Despite this, Mama's girls are more than hospitable, providing lap-dances for the visiting militia in the bar - a sanctuary from the warring factions outside.
Seemingly impervious to the suffering endured by her new wards, Mama puts them to work. Jenny Jules' Mama is charismatic, wilful and strong but her mercenary interest in her customers, and the rough diamond she has sequestered away, makes her seem cold and inhuman. For Mama, if something can't be measured on a set of scales it isn't worth anything. The menace that has been threatening at the door finally crosses the threshold and there is a palpable change in tone as soon as the second half of the play begins. Horrific violence is first reported by Salima who has been forcibly held as a slave, enduring rape and beatings for five months, and who returns to her village only to be shunned by her family and then beaten and chased away by her husband. The play reaches a climax with the intrusion of war into Mama's realm and the death of Salima who screams 'you won' fight your war on my body any more' as she plunges a knife into her pregnant belly. We learn a crucial thing about Mama at the end of the play – she too is 'ruined' and this explains why she has been so solicitous for Sophie's well-being even after she was found to be stealing from the money-box. The professor finally breaks down the emotional barriers Mama has shored up against her humiliation and she responds to his tender avowal of love.
I can't bring myself to be critical of this play because it was so immensely enjoyable. That's not to say it was faultless, just that it delivered a thought-provoking message in an entertaining and deeply moving way. If I were to be cynical, I might say that the play couldn't decide whether it was a comedy or a tragedy- the humorous elements were perhaps too frequent, the violence, when it came, was then too gratuitous and unrelenting. The love story, rushed in to provide a happy ending, was probably too trite and too unproblematic a conclusion to the deeply troubling series of events that preceded it. Countering this imperfection was an impressive exuberance and vitality; the acting was excellent and the story deeply affecting. The disparate elements came together not to produce a balanced or harmonious piece of theatre (after all, we have moved on from dusty Aristotelian notions of classical dramatic form), but rather to portray the messiness of life and the enduring strength of the human spirit in the face of inhuman brutality and unimaginable adversity.
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