Say "vagina." Now say it 128 times.
That's how many times actresses Gretchen Lee Krich, Joyce Lee and Maureen McCormick, of "Brady Bunch" fame, said it in the performance of "The Vagina Monologues" at The Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe Tuesday night. Not that they're alone -- that's just an average performance.
But this production was not standard fare, playwright Eve Ensler appeared for a question-and-answer session with the audience after the show.
They were part of a national tour of the "Vagina Monologues," in which Krich and Lee will be joined in each round of performances by either a local or a national celebrity. The show will continue at the Lensic until Feb. 9.
The show opens with a list of unprintable synonyms women have used for their Vagina's.
"It sounds like a disease at best," said McCormick in her first bit of dialogue. With this opening, the actresses embark on a hilarious discourse regarding society's ridiculous fear of female genitalia.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
The show is based on interviews Ensler did with hundreds of women in America, sometimes directly quoting them, and sometimes creating a composite of general attitudes women had towards their "down there's."
The play examines everything it can about vaginas in a 90-minute period, and fluctuates between the bizarre and the devastating, sometimes confronting its audience with issues of sexual violence. Often though, the play is hilarious and all of these elements are starkly honest.
It continues without intermission and is comprised of sections like "Hair," "The Flood," "Because He Liked to Look at It," "My Angry Vagina," "The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" and finally, "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy." The last section requires McCormick, formerly known as Marcia Brady, to play a tax lawyer gone dominatrix who gives examples of various orgasmic moans.
"I never thought I'd see Marcia Brady as a dominatrix," Ensler said as she walked on stage.
"The Vagina Monologues" has been hailed one of the biggest theater successes in past years. It has been performed in over 40 countries, is currently booked in over 160 cities in the United States and Canada and has been translated into 35 different languages. Though, as Marc Peyser said in an article for the Theatre Council, "It's hard to imagine how you might say 'coochi snorcher' in Korean."
All this, stemming from an initial production for which Ensler took an ad out in the New York Times with a credit card, only to be called days later and told that, "There were way too many vaginas in the ad" for them to print it. "The Vagina Monologues" opened at Here, a SoHo Theater in 1996, ran for three months and won an Obie Award.
Capitalizing off the play's success, Ensler has created V-Day, a globally orchestrated movement to stop violence against women. But Ensler made a point to address the colonialist view sometimes present in organizations that try to change other cultures. V-Day makes it a point to give financial and emotional support existing networks and community members in other countries. The organization seeks out community members trying to make a change. Donations will be accepted at the show, and a percentage of all ticket prices go to support V-Day.
Now, six years later, the New York Times ran an ad that said the "Vagina Monologues" are "clitically" acclaimed. Ensler attributes this change in attitude to not backing down the first time around.
"If you aren't going to do something all the way, don't do it," Ensler said.
Ensler is credited with finally opening up a discussion about women's bodies, and bringing a humorous side back to feminism. Many college-aged and younger women are attending the shows. McCormick said in an interview with the Daily Lobo that she would like to bring her 13-year-old daughter to a performance.
"I think it would make her understand women more," McCormick said. "The heart of women, the joys and the sorrows because I think as we go through life, we either have something terrible happen to us in some way, or happen to somebody that we know and I think it would make her more open. I think it has that effect on people.
