Twenty-Eight Vaginas: Loud and Proud! The Vagina Monologues Review

by Erin Hadley

On February 15, twenty-eight brave women took over the University Center Ballroom Stage for a reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. The performance here at Adelphi was a part of the V-Day College Initiative in which 300 colleges and universities across America staged performances to benefit the battle against violence against women.

The Vagina Monologues drew attention to itself in 1998 when rotating three-women casts (including such well-known stars as Rite Moreno, Kate Blanchette, Rosie Perez, Claire Daines, Audra McDonald to name only a handful) graced stages off-Broadway, across America, and even in other countries. The Monologues are based on a series of interviews conducted by Ensler:

"Over two hundred women were interviewed. Old women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college professors, actors, corporate professionals, sex workers, African American women, Hispanic women, Asian American women, Native American women, Caucasian women, Jewish women."

It boasts of a new feminism: one of self-respect as well as respect for others. It encourages women to embrace and revel in their own sexuality without fear or shame. It discusses the fears, horrors, and joys surrounding that sexuality with a refreshing frankness. English professor Ruth Sternglantz, with the assistance of Marci Finkelstein, directed the sizeable undertaking of spreading this good word to the Adelphi community.

The crowd at 8pm on that Thursday night was varied: female and male, young and old, and every ethnic and religious background imaginable. About 400 students, faculty, staff and members of the community attended including President Robert A. Scott, who joined a standing ovation and Audrey Blumberg, who is the Senior Associate Provost. During an annoying delay of twenty minutes due to the large volume of people filtering in, I began wondering to myself, as I stared at a stage empty save for four lonely microphones, how uncomfortable it would be to listen to vagina-talk in such a mixed crowd. Being the proud owner of a vagina, I was completely comfortable with whatever topics might come up, but I was uncertain of how my vaginally- challenged neighbors would react. How sympathetic could such a mixed crowd be? My fears were soon alleviated.

Eve Ensler's piece, though a somewhat awkward reading in print, translated brilliantly to the stage. The monologues, performed by a mixed group of students, faculty and staff, were read with sincerity and humor. Laughter was shared by males and females alike when references to the horrors of tampons and gynecological exams were explored; colorful references were made to vaginas without shame or discomfort on the part of the speakers; and orgasmic moans and cries echoed through the Ballroom. Although a cast of twenty-eight lent itself to some confusion and distraction on stage, as might be expected, the reading itself was touching and poignant, not to mention extremely effective.

The monologues were performed with dialogue and introductory scenes in between. Topics from rape, to genital mutilation, to the many wonders of the clitoris, to menstruation were discussed. But, although the dialogue in-between was invaluable to the piece, and artfully performed by various members of the ensemble, it was the monologues themselves that stood out. Cristen Bradshaw met the audience with a mixture of humor and honesty in Hair. Kristen Beckmann shone as a British woman recounting the discovery of her vagina in The Vagina Workshop. Heather Harrison stole the stage as an edgy woman who learned to love her vagina because of her lovers fascination with it in Because He Liked To Look At It. Shalinthia Miles, in her telling of My Vagina Was My Village, moved the audience with the horrific story of a Bosnian rape victim. Lindsey Pohlman stole the stage with her with her stand up comedy-esque retelling of My Angry Vagina. The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could, was performed with attitude as well as sincerity by Char Sidney, as it recounted a woman's sexual epiphany at the age of thirteen. Darlene Heller was fantastic as she got the audience to chant along with her in the Reclaiming Cunt monologue. The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy, with a brilliant and outrageously hilarious performance by Angela DiGennaro, retold the tale of a woman who left the practice of corporate law to be a sex worker because she loved making women moan (the moans were masterfully reproduced onstage). And Dean Gayle Insler closed the show with a retelling of the witnessing of human birth with I Was There In The Room.

I left the ballroom that night with mixed emotions. I was proud to have a vagina, horrified at the atrocities forced upon other women, intrigued by the experiences of others, and basking in a feeling of a universal camaraderie, all at the same time. It was a good staged reading of the piece itself, and what it lacked in actual drama, it made up for in sincerity and good intentions. I personally commend each and every woman who possessed the courage and strength to stand on that stage, openly discuss some of the most taboo of subjects in our society with bold honesty, and in the process, educate a society on a need for change.