“Who needs a handgun when you’ve got a semiautomatic?” asked Stephanie Yarger’08, pitting the pleasure-inducing capabilities of the penis against those of the clitoris. In her recitation of a “Vagina Happy Fact” Yarger explained just why women are better off with their “semiautomatics”: wholly orgasmic in design, the clitoris has twice the number of nerve fibers than the penis.
Bang, bang.
Tidbits of vagina trivia such as this were only some of the vagina related information spread in the Wesleyan production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” On Feb. 17, 18 and 20, eighteen students performed the provocative work, directed by Hannah Furstenberg-Beckman’08 and Lillian Ruiz’08.
Ensler’s award-winning play was born out of over 200 interviews with women of all ages and backgrounds on their lives, and, of course, vaginas. The stories that Ensler eventually compiled into “The Vagina Monologues” range from heartbreaking to hilarious. Exactly how Ensler managed to get these stories out of the women who told them is almost as intriguing as seeing the stories, the product of anonymous voices, embodied on stage.
The performers sat facing the audience, lined up against the graffiti-addled wall in the Westco Café and elegantly dressed in varying shades of pink and red. The small performance space suited the play’s intimate subject matter and was helpful in enhancing the sobering realism portrayed in some of the more serious pieces.
Among the especially gritty monologues was “My Vagina Was My Village,” performed by Juliet Ingber’08 and Lucia Pier’08. Ingber and Pier delineated the tragic story of a woman raped and horribly abused by soldiers, making the description more acute by taking turns describing the peaceful past and nightmarish present.
“My vagina is singing all girl songs…vagina songs, vagina home songs,” Pier spoke softly. Her hushed tones were sharply countered by Ingber’s solemnly delivered lines depicting the invasion of her body.
“Not since the soldiers put a long thick rifle inside me,” Ingber said.
Such stunning portrayals of sexual abuse brought the audience and actors alike to tears and contrasted the raucous laughter and celebration other monologues incited.
Marina Kastan’08 roused the audience out of passivity briefly in “Reclaiming Cunt.” Kastan related the mission of one woman’s linguistic battle to remove the pejorative meaning behind the “c-word” and make it something to be proud of. In her zeal, she delightfully explored the sound and aural texture of the word by spelling and sounding out the word and each letter in it. At the end, Kastan appealed to the audience to yell out with her, “Cunt! Cunt!” Curiously, it took a moment or so for the chant to catch on in the audience. It seems as though Wesleyan’s politically correct heritage made the brazen shouting of such a politically charged word a bit counterintuitive. However, the show’s enthusiastic directors, Furstenberg-Beckman and Ruiz, quickly took the initiative in yelling “cunt” right back at Kastan, showing by example that no one’s mouth would be getting washed out with soap for this.
Another performance that may have been uncomfortable to watch at first but ultimately riveting was that of Sandhya Daemgen’08. In “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” Daemgen portrayed a former lawyer who saw her true calling in the business of procuring deep, primitive moans from woman. Daemgen took the stage like a motivational speaker, albeit one with nymphomaniac tendencies, and recalled a variety of memorable moans. Highlights of the different categories were the diva, machine gun, and WASP moans, but the college student moan seemed to hit the closest to home.
“I…should…be…studying,” Daemgen moaned.
“It was a really good bonding experience basically,” Daemgen said about her participation. “I learned about sexuality and being a woman. The world and women are so squeamish about it. Vaginas are the best and moaning on stage is really fun.”
Yarger also had a positive experience with the production, though she bluntly expressed her opinion of the play as an intellectual work.
“Some of it is stupid, it really is,” Yaeger said. “But I enjoyed it, and it’s fun and important to do for heritage’s sake, though maybe not at Wesleyan [as opposed to less liberal schools].”
The process of putting together the show at Wesleyan was affected heavily by the politics of the piece itself.
“We had actresses drop out due to school work and because they thought the play was racist, classist and imperialist,” Furstenberg-Beckman said.
Furthermore, the directors faced problems with the venue and finances, and ended up paying for expenses mostly out of their own pockets.
Regardless, the show proceeded smoothly, and its minimalist quality served to foster a sense of pure performance.
“I was so nervous because it felt as if so many things had been thrown together at the last minute,” Furstenberg-Beckman said. “We hardly had been able to have any full-cast practices in WestCo Cafe and I thought we needed more time. The girls really rose to the occasion and Lillian and I were able to throw some things together at the last minute, like sound. I was so impressed and proud of them on Thursday night. We also had a great audience that evening,”
Students in the audience said they were impressed with the work of their peers in putting together and acting in “The Vagina Monologues.”
“I’ve kind of heard about this from day one,” said Elaine Lai’08, whose roommate Zoey Farber’08 acted in the play. “Now that I watched everything come to fruition I feel a strong respect for the actors, Eve Ensler and the women whose stories were told tonight.”
From the perspective of a non-vagina bearing audience member, there was the expected interest accompanied with slight befuddlement.
“’The Vagina Monologues’ may have become a common staple on college campuses, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an entertaining and informative, if not too informative, evening,” said Thaddeus Ruzicka’08.
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