Blunt, powerful, and amusing, the Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler, graced the stage on Saturday March 1, leaving the audience stunned, thoughtful, and crying with laughter. Eleven women and one lone man explained the many different angles of the female anatomy. From explored to virginal, forced to willing, and old to young, the audience was regaled with confession-like stories of the most private (and not-so-private) parts.
Director Jennie Phyllis Gratton stated in the notes of the program, “When I transferred to Plymouth State last year, I organized a production of the Vagina Monologues because no matter how many times it is done, in no matter how many places around the world, violence is still a very harsh reality to all women.” Gratton brought the show to Plymouth last year, organizing both that and this year’s production in cooperation with the V-Day College Campaign, striving to bring awareness to college campuses about the violence towards women and girls.
The monologues consisted of an array of experiences concerning the vagina. They ranged from funny and amusing to the darker stories portraying the anger and tyrannized victimization of women. Opening the show was “Hair,” an amusing account of a woman coming to realize her fondness for her pubic hair despite the lose her boyfriend because she wouldn’t shave. It was an empowering real-life tale, taking back dignity and doing away with objectification.
Another empowering narrative, “The Vagina Workshop,” relived through Meagan Becker, delighted the onlookers with an account of finding the inner woman through masturbation. Through a seminar in discovering the self through the vagina, the women are instructed to lie back and explore themselves, attempting to find their clitoris. In the account, she finds herself when she accidentally stumbles upon the little bundle of nerves, and realizes for the first time, the gentle power with which it is connected.
Monologues such as “The Flood,” performed by Annette Beaudoin, “My Vagina was My Village” told by Geri Kondrat and “Under the Burqa” brought the viewers into the enigmatic underworld of the feminine mystique. The ridicule and harsh words toward a young woman in the “The Flood,” showed the audience the emotionally abusing side attached to the vagina and orgasms. “Under the Burqa” displayed the female oppression and abuse in Afghanistan through the use of a burqa, a black sheet covering the exposed beautiful female skin.
Interspersed throughout the monologues were the “Vagina Facts,” told by Kristen Beaudoin, which let the audience in on some gruesome details. The most shocking was perhaps the information on female castration. It seems more than six thousand operations on women happen everyday, which more often than not, lead to permanent health concerns and even death.
In addition to the many stories by women, a new male edition to the Monologues brought in a new perspective. Written by senior Ben Aufill and performed by Robert Haydn, the monologue told the violence of women through the penis instead of the vagina. With a projection of a half-peeled banana, was an insight to the confusion of the male half in relation to the vagina.
Although the content was sensitive and the issues were emotion-charged, the Monologues were an excellent show. Both entertaining and stark the women, and man, did a wonderful job in impacting the audience with the desolation of violence against women and girls.