V
The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler's iconic play featuring diverse women standing up to talk about their vaginas, has been around for a while now. I always assumed it was dated, overly militant, and/or overly . . . I don't know, goddess-y. But when my 85-year-old mother-in-law performed in it this past weekend, I get a chance to see for myself.
Turns out, it's iconic for a reason. The play is fantastic. There are a few eye-rolling moments (the woman who always envisioned her vagina as furniture?), but it is artful, creative, and moving. The monologues include simple stories, arguments, poetic word associations, everything under the sun. There are sad stories, happy stories, luminous moments, dark moments. Most important, it does what great art should do: brings reality closer. That's true whether it's a far-flung reality, like life under the burqa in Afghanistan, or a close but deep-buried one, like the yearnings of a middle-class white American woman.
The performance was at a Unitarian church nearby, and all the performers were church members. This is the second time I've seen a first-class performance at a local amateur theater. One of the best Shakespeare performances I've ever seen was of A Midsummer Night's Dream performed in a local high school gym by a local troupe that included one of my students, and it was better than the one Shakespeare play I've seen at West End. Art comes in when preconceptions are shut down.
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