Can You Say Vagina?
Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues
Lilian Calles Barger
January 1, 2000
The Vagina Monologues
written and performed by Eve Ensler
Art can often do and say things that mere philosophical reflection cannot; an artist in her most creative moments can convey ideas at once simple and brilliantly complex. With The Vagina Monologues, playwright and performance artist Eve Ensler gathers a powerful ensemble of stories, all centered around a simple, if not-oft-said-in-public word. The Vagina Monologues is exactly what its title would suggest: a series of monologues exploring the joys, fears, and mystery associated with a very private part of female anatomy. Based on two hundred interviews with a diverse group of women talking about their vaginas and their most intimate experiences, this off-Broadway, Obie-award-winning show has been wildly successful, with stars like Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, and Amy Irving outdoing one another in their eagerness to perform it. A few months ago, I had an unexpected chance to see Ensler's own powerful performance at Feminist Expo 2000 in Baltimore.
Ensler portrays a variety of experiences, often in raunchy detail: an insensitive husband, a pick-up at a deli, a lesbian affair. Within these stories the perplexities of menarche, sexual awakening, and orgasms are explored. But beneath the crude language lies an undercurrent of riveting mystery, delight, and rage. The vagina becomes a metaphor for women's lives and our desire to be valued. One woman, describing the first time she actually paid attention to her vagina, says it like this: "It was better than the Grand Canyon, ancient and full of grace. It had the innocence and freshness of a proper English garden. It was funny, very funny. It made me laugh. It could hide and seek, open and close. It was a mouth. It was the morning. ...
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