Dark Continents

Civil wars in Tim Robbins' Break the Whip and Lynn Nottage's Ruined

Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Thursday, Sep 23 2010

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Mama Nadi (Portia) seriously believes that her no-weapons-allowed policy, and her open door to both government and rebel soldiers, will somehow protect her from the civil war's inevitable, inexorable swath of destruction. And Portia's performance is so searing and muscular, you almost believe her.

One of her diminutive and slightly oily salesman clients, Christian (Russell G. Jones), arrives with two young women as prospective "employees." Beautiful Sophie (Condola Rashad) has the eyes and stature of a gazelle, which may have been responsible for how she came to be "ruined" (reproductively) by the bayonets of unspecified marauding soldiers, so she needs to be spared from sexual intercourse. She's obtained a marked limp and every move is accompanied by a silent grimace. Her salable asset is her singing voice, which gives flight to her agony. The other woman is Salima (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), a gravel-voiced waif so beaten down, one of her eyes is virtually sealed shut.

PHOTO BY CHRIS WARD

History in black and white: Jones and Schultz in Break the Whip

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The establishment is terrorized by the rebel leader, Jerome Kisembe (Tongayi Chirisa), and his government rival, Commander Osembenga (David St. Louis), who, aside from their political rivalry, appear to be competing in the sweepstakes for self-importance. This is a bar saturated with sexual politics: Salima's husband, Fortune (Carl Cofield), shows up to reclaim his bride from the brothel, after he spurned her following her brutal rape by soldiers. Should she go back to him, and to the village that similarly abandoned her in her moment of degradation and despair?

More remarkable than the trajectory of the story are the tones emanating from the production, under Kate Whoriskey's staging. The first comes from the onstage guitarist (Simon Shabantu Kashama) and drummer (Ron McBee), who juxtapose conversations and arguments with the sway and lilt of Dominic Kanza's original music, Nottage's lyrics and Warren Adams' erotic choreography. Then, the performers themselves generate a layer of protective callousness, the armor of a region where life is always ending, or being mutilated. The larger question is whether that cynical veneer can be scratched in order to allow intimacy to invade these hardened hearts. That's not a rhetorical question in this production, but a visceral one. Derek McLane's set of bright, broken colors and mismatching wooden furniture anchors the locale with the thick trunks of palm trees, like the legs of elephants standing around and watching, bemused.

BREAK THE WHIP | Written and directed by TIM ROBBINS | Presented by ACTORS' GANG at the Ivy Substation Theater, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City | Sat., 7 p.m.; Wed.-Fri., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 13 | (310) 838-4264.

RUINED | By LYNNE NOTTAGE | Presented by INTIMAN THEATRE and the GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood | Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m.; through Oct. 17 | (310) 208-5454.