THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.
London
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES
by Eve Ensler
Arts Theatre
Mon-Sat 7pm Mat Thur 3pm & Sat 4.30pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS 020 7836 3334
Review Timothy Ramsden 2 July 2002
An often informative, sometimes hilarious distillation of interviews that mostly hits the right buttons.
Its setting – receding pink and red, female footwear and high stools with mikes, suggests a cabaret, or revue. But the script's based on interviews with a wide variety of women: documentary theatre looms?
These Monologues are a mix of verbatim, edited transcripts and statistical facts. From the long opening list of names with which women have baptised their sexual organs, through the workshops exercises of imagining them clothed in suitable wear, or speaking for themselves, it's clear that personal psyches, under whatever pressures from social conditions, have created widely varied attitudes among women towards their sexual physicality.
There's a sense of celebration and liberation, climaxing – ironically enough – with the supposed stand-by Penelope McGhie's symphonic display of ecstatic moans, ending in a full-throated triple orgasmic somersault. McGhie's confident performance makes you think she must be lined up for a permanent front-row stool come the next cast change.
For, like Yasmina Reza's Art, this is a three-handed show that's become its own long-running West End star. Casts come and go regularly. The latest includes Rita Tushingham, whose Liverpool origins emerge in a delightful episode of querulous organic assertion from one interviewee, but who's also touching in her account of an older woman emerging through distaste to self-discovery as she talks to the tireless Ensler about parts of herself she'd apparently dismissed for decades.
In contrast, Nina Wadia veers towards stand-up, confidently commenting on the material through knowing facial expressions.
Though it's not all fun and anecdotes, which is where the piece both gains depth and becomes questionable. Oklahoma Christians are targeted for satire, but there's a wariness over fastening on the cultural specifics of genital mutilation, which is merely stated to happen in Africa and America.
The switch from satire to sincerity is awkward too. Bosnian rape camps are rightly voiced into the account. But the suddenly furrowed-brows of the non-speaking performers and the overt dedication to the camps' victims are embarrassingly patronising. Actors are outstanding at authenticity, but stink at sincerity: the whole job's about being insincere, while the experiences speak for themselves – they're in no need of intrusive actor-endorsements.
Performed by:
Aicha Kossoko
Rita Tushingham
Nina Wadia
Penelope McGhie
Re-director: Irina Brown
Designer: Bunny Christie
Lighting: Paule Constable, Jon Buswell
Re-lighting: Matthew O' Connor
2002-07-04 00:19:14