Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
“It’s 10 o’clock at night – do you know where your clitoris is?”
This is just one of the thought-provoking statements that filled the Vaginazine “In the Flesh,” which was handed to the many people who came to view the third annual “Vagina Monologues” last Friday night at Minsky Recital Hall.
Along with the Vaginazine, attendants were given free whistles (for use in case of an attacker), as they filed into the recital hall. The sound of Tori Amos filled the room as the black and red clad audience took their seats. Upon looking at the stage, the audience’s focus was immediately drawn not to the huge red V’s stating “Rape Free Zone,” but to the interesting wall hanging situated at the center of the stage’s backdrop. This hanging was similar to a page in a Magic Eye book – it took a lot of staring and contemplation to decipher exactly what it was – a huge, patchwork vagina.
The bustling crowd grew silent as the 22 black chairs that lined the back of the stage were filled.
Three women rose and went to one of the microphones situated on either side of the stage, and the first monologue began. It explained the origin of the “Monologues.” Creator Eve Ensler interviewed many women, of all races, ages and backgrounds about their vaginas for the “Monologues.” She felt like vaginas were too much like the Bermuda Triangle: mysterious and basically uncharted territory. Little did the viewer know how familiar with vaginas they were about to become.
Ensler asked women what their vaginas would say if they could talk, or wear if they could get dressed. In “Wear and Say,” the entire cast revealed the answers. Vaginas would wear a leather jacket, emeralds, sequins, a tutu, a slicker or a tattoo. If possible, vaginas everywhere would be heard saying, “slow down,” “start again,” “feed me,” “no, over there,” “not yet” and the ever popular, “yes, there there!!”
The show was filled with vagina humor. In “The Flood,” Rachel Brayant played an old woman who refers to her vagina strictly as “down there” and likens it to a cellar, “It’s damp and clammy. You just know it’s there, like the cellar. It gets wet and sometimes people plug up the leaks.”
Senior Sarah Paul did some serious venting in “My Angry Vagina.” Her character complained about vagina injustices, from tampons to douches and those rose scented sprays saying, “I wanna taste the fish – that’s why I ordered it!”
The audience roared it’s loudest however, in “The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy.” Sarah Brasslett treated the sold-out crowd to a demonstration on the many different kinds of moans: the “clit” moan, the “almost” moan, the “never ending baby” moan, the “uninhibited militant bisexual” moan, and finally, the “surprised triple orgasm” moan.
The show is also sprinkled with interesting facts about, what else, vaginas. For example, did you know that the clitoris is a bundle of 8,000 nerves, twice the number than that in a penis? Which prompts the question: “Who needs a handgun when you’ve got a semiautomatic?”
Many serious issues were also addressed. “Under the Burqua” was performed in darkness by Molly McLaughlin, and speaks of the horrors faced by women in Afghanistan. The room is deadly silent as she spoke of being “encased in clothe. Drowning in clothe.”
The night closed with a monologue that Ensler wrote upon the birth of her granddaughter. Here, she compares the vagina to another precious organ: the heart. After all, “The heart is capable of sacrifice, so is the vagina. It can ache for us, so can the vagina.”
This show was so inspiring that it just may cause women and men everywhere to join in chanting, “Pussies Unite!”
