By Sarah McVean/photo editor
A celebration of female sexuality, The Vagina Monologues, will be presented on the NE Campus to help benefit the Battered Women’s Shelter of Fort Worth.
Performances begin at 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 9-10, in the NFAB Theatre on NE Campus. Reservations are not required, but a $10 donation to the shelter is requested.
This Obie Award-winning play consists of 16 NE students, faculty and staff, including men and women. The cast has already raised $22,000 and hopes to raise an additional $3,000 this weekend.
The Vagina Monologues is a book of testimonies from more than 200 women covering such subjects as giving birth and orgasms. The monologues have been adapted into a script and have since been performed in cities around the world and at hundreds of college campuses.
In 1998, the author, Eve Ensler, changed the purpose of The Vagina Monologues from a celebration of femininity and the vagina to something more powerful—a global movement called V-Day.
The international non-profit organization to stop violence against females originally began Valentine’s Day 1998. Each year worldwide, between Feb. 1 and March 8, proceeds from all performances go toward programs that help end violence against women and girls.
Last V-Day, more than 3,000 events took place worldwide, and to date more than $50 million has been raised.
“[The Vagina Monologues and V-Day are] a vagina miracle. It’s way beyond any dream I had, and it has completely changed my life,” Ensler said to www.Women.com. “I’ve been an activist my whole life. But years ago, I made a commitment to devote the rest of my life to ending violence toward women.”
Ensler believes the vagina is a tool of empowerment through which women can achieve undeniable individuality and femininity.
The Vagina Monologues has been criticized by a number of figures in the Pro-Sex Feminist, Gender Egalitarians and Individualist Feminist movements. Betty Dodson, Pro-Sex Feminist and author of several books on female sexuality, saw the play as having a negative and restrictive view on sexuality and an anti-male bias.
“The play is a blast of hatred at men and heterosexuality,” she said.
This year the updated script has been adapted for not only more females to participate but males too.
In 2004, Ensler, Jane Fonda and Deep Stealth Productions directed and produced a new series of monologues over transgender issues that are read by 18 notable trans-women. It debuted during La V-Day until the Violence Stops,which documented the violence against transgender. Since then, three of the transgender monologues have been added to many productions of the original performances.
According to www.Women.com, Ensler is inspired as a performer by Tina Turner.
“I love Tina Turner,” she said. “She is a woman who fully inhabits her vagina, and when I see her, I see that it’s possible.”
The monologues have meaning beyond the obvious and can be touching and hilarious at the same time. Critiques agree the play is entertaining to both men and women.
