Happy V-Day: Why the Vagina Monologues is so important

by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

This weekend marks my third Valentine’s Day with Eve Ensler – even though we’ve never met, corresponded or conversed.  In fact, I doubt that Eve knows I exist – we have the most one-sided of intimate relationships, although she is often (somewhat indirectly) the source of my Valentine’s flowers.  Every winter since my freshman year, I’ve found myself involved with Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues (which is being performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, with a 2 pm matinee) – something that has been more constant than friends, majors, or boyfriends.  First as an actress, then a director, and finally this year as a co-director (my lovely accomplice here is Lydia Dallett ’12, who also happens to be an EW blogger), I’ve seen each monologue performed by three different actresses, watched the play transposed to different spaces, wrung my hands over the lighting, screamed over blocking, and listened to every kind of fake orgasm.  And I’ve certainly lost all hang-ups I ever had with saying the word “vagina.”

Let me make one thing clear: I am decidedly ambivalent about Eve Ensler and her play.  After directing it solo my sophomore year, I became intimately familiar with each monologue, to the point where I think I could, by the end of the run, have performed the entire play from memory.  I spent a lot of time thinking about whether I actually am pissed off about tampons or gynecological exams (which some might argue are great milestones for women’s health – and not something to be snarkily dismissed), whether it’s really okay to glorify sex between a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-five-year-old, regardless of whether they’re both women, or even whether I’m comfortable saying something like “My vagina, my vagina.  Me.”  (After all, isn’t that the kind of essentialism we’re trying to escape?)  A few of my actresses were so uncomfortable with the introduction to last year’s spotlight monologue (which, among other things, called the Congo the “heart” of Africa – problematic Conrad reference, anyone?) that we wrote to Ensler, asking her whether we could change it.  Her reply (no) was frustrating and disappointing.  My male friends complained that they felt excluded – even though they didn’t have one, they argued, they were certainly capable of being concerned about vaginas.

A fair question, at this point, is why I keep coming back for more.  This show has caused me stress, tears and loss of sleep, and I have never felt particularly inspired by the text itself.  I was very uninvested in the play when I first got involved.  I auditioned on a whim – struggling through a difficult freshman year, I cared less about the play’s message than simply meeting people who I liked.  I was disappointed by the individual nature of the play (group rehearsals don’t begin until January, long after the auditions), and although I was cast in small, ensemble parts, I wondered if it was worth my time.  I almost quit – and then, guilty over the director’s stress, decided to stick it out.  I was given the “Reclaiming Cunt” monologue at the last minute, and spent several weeks grappling with my hatred for the word (even now, I still don’t think it’s been adequately “reclaimed”).  I became close friends with several members of the cast, and by the time the show was ending, I was crushed at the thought that I might not be in a room with all of those amazing women again.  We decided as a cast that we wanted to come onstage at the end for our bows in our underwear – a significant challenge for most of us, who struggled with body image issues.

By the end of that year, when I was thinking about whether I wanted to participate again (and had heard, through the grapevine, that nobody had signed up yet to direct), I started thinking about the experience as a whole.  It really had changed me – but not because I got up on a Friday and Saturday night and tried to convince a reluctant audience to shout the word “Cunt!” – a word that even I didn’t want to say.  Rather, I had made connections that had drastically altered my daily life.  Performing made me less shy, and more confident.  And being surrounded by a group of diverse, hilarious, intelligent women even for the two weeks when we were all rehearsing together had made me see that perhaps Princeton was a place where I could thrive.  The quality of the play didn’t matter – in fact, our problems with the script often brought us closer.

When I decided to direct the next year, I wanted the performance to be as collaborative as possible.  I met with each actress to talk honestly about her issues with her monologue, and I tried to organize social events for the cast.  It was difficult to do on my own – especially when my stage manager quit unexpectedly in the middle of January – but the show that resulted was something that I (and I think the rest of my cast) was intensely proud of.  And something happened between the last performance and the first day of auditions this fall, because four times as many people auditioned.  I went from literally begging my friends to audition in 2008 to, with my co-director Lydia, agonizing over cutting half the people who tried out in 2009.  Clearly, the play touched something inside many of the people who had seen it the year before.  I don’t think that had much to do with my directorial ability – in fact, I think it was because I took such a hands-off approach and encouraged the actresses to put so much of themselves into their performances.  And this year, working with Lydia has been challenging and empowering in a new way – I’ve learned to collaborate in a way that I’ve never experienced before.  And of course, with each production, I’ve made new friends.

This year, I know one thing – I won’t direct The Vagina Monologues again.  I may audition for a monologue next year, or even take the most novel approach and become a mere spectator.  And there are elements of the play that I will never be able to defend.  But I can say with total certainty that this play changed my life, and that it’s been one of the most constant and positive elements of my college experience.  It may seem problematic, or dated, or just plain silly to some – but The Vagina Monologues matters.  It matters to get twenty women on a stage together, and have them fake orgasms and talk about rape.  The conversations that they have backstage matter.  The reactions of the people sitting in the audience matter.  And although I do think that the plays should involve men, and that Ensler should give students a freer hand with the way they produce their productions, I’ll never regret the time and energy that I’ve poured into any of these shows – in fact, I can’t imagine a better use of my time.  So happy Valentine’s Day – I’m looking forward to seeing all of you at the show.