Ruinous Review

I feel privileged to live in a city where great theater is within walking distance of my home. The Fells Point Corner Theatre’s production of Ruined was one of the finest theatrical experiences I can remember. Your reviewer did not do justice to the work, to the director, or to the performers (“Ruined,” Stage, May 23). It is rare to go to a play and believe you are witnessing reality, not just folks portraying some form of “truth.” At times I had to convince myself this was a play and not actual people enmeshed in Congolese horror.

I do not have a strong stomach for theatrical violence, and much of what I have seen lately goes over the top in gratuitous shock. But Ruined is based on the world of banal evil and current, well-documented horror. The domain the characters inhabit opened my eyes to how human beings degrade one another for sport when given the chance. The play also pointed out that below the surface of civilization there exists a deep magma of cruelty and hatred.

It was not just the women who were destroyed by this culture of viciousness—everyone’s future has been “ruined,” and it’s not a pretty sight. Nottage’s play should be seen by students of politics, or anyone seeking a career in the Foreign Service. To me the playwright has proven that all the benevolent meddling anyone embarks upon is meaningless in places like her Congolese mining town. The only salvation to all the wretchedness is random acts of kindness or compassion.

Whether the drumming or the accents troubled audience members, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that one can experience a theatrical situation that speaks to the world we live in—a world of greed, guerilla warfare, bloodshed, destruction, and despair. In today’s smug, globalized culture the lessons of Ruined need to be understood by those of us who, unknowingly, reap rewards from the misery.

Rosalind Ellis Heid

Baltimore

legalize it

Van Smith’s piece regarding Baltimore heroin channels that stretch to Africa and involves individuals with ties to al-Qaida and Hezbollah (“Straight Outta Accra,” Feature, May 23), is another indictment of our flawed “War on Drugs.” Our laws, which deny an individual the right to his or her own body, create a huge price premium that attracts criminals and terrorists to the trade in search of artificial Prohibition-style profits. If drugs were decriminalized and treated like other commodities such as tobacco and alcohol violence and narco-terrorism would cease to exist, freedom would be enhanced, and billions of taxpayer dollars would not be squandered.

Amesh A. Adalja MD

Butler, PA

Correction: A review of the new Lafayette Gilchrist and the New Volcanoes live album in the May 23 issue incorrectly identified trumpet player Don Cherry as a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. City Paper regrets the error.