The Vagina Monologues

By Eve Ensler
Random ACT Theatre Company
Mood Nightclub, Edinburgh

Review by Rachel Lynn Brody (2006)

Since Eve Ensler's revolutionary The Vagina Monologues was first produced, hundreds of productions in cities around the world have taken place. They range from massive affairs with big-budget stars to small, intimate performances using home-grown talent - and it is the latter which graced the stage this week at Mood nightclub in the Omni, courtesy of director John Naples-Campbell and his troupe of five terrifically enthusiastic actresses.

Never having attended a performance of the Monologues before, it was difficult to know what to expect from the production. Would it be a confrontational and demanding experience which would require audience members to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the story of each character, or would it be a gentle and affecting night of girl power? With the actresses taking their positions among the audiences, most of whom were seated obediently on the dance floor, it could have gone either way.

Thanks to enormous dedication and sensitivity on the part of each actress, not to mention Ensler's powerful and moving writing, the Monologues varied in tone and pace while always staying captivating.

Each performer made her monologues relevant and forward without being intimidating, standing to deliver her lines from stationary positions among the viewers. Noteable performances included 'The Flood,' 'My Short Skirt,' and the moaning crescendos of 'The Woman who loved to make vaginas happy.'

More problematic, though the performance itself was flawless and sympathetic, was 'The Little Cocchi Snorcher that could' - more or less a story about a sexually abused 13-year-old who spends a night of passion with her 24-year-old (female) neighbour, who is then lauded by both the storyteller and the audience. Obviously this is based on one of Ensler's interviews, but it seems a little creepy that audiences cheered on the neighbour's behalf - one must ask oneself, if the gender of the 24-year-old was reversed, would this story of illicit passion provoke the same response?

The choice of venue was an interesting one given the atmosphere of the club on a typical Friday or Saturday night (when women will also find themselves the centre of attention, though not in a way that's particularly empowering to their gender); the staff's readying themselves for the night's business at times made it difficult to hear the performers, although this was probably less of an issue for those who sat where they were told.

That said, the use of space, lighting and sound was creative and well-thought out. The actresses maintained brilliant focus throughout the piece, and by the latter half of the show the audience had warmed to them admirably. This is a production that does what it says on the tin, and does it in a way that is easy to enjoy.

Edinburgh Evening News

Humour and sorrow just the way to grab attention

The Vagina Monologues ***
Mood Bar

THERE will be a "spontaneous eruption of vaginas" promised director John Naples-Campbell just before this new production of Eve Ensler's taboo-busting play.

By which he simply meant that the actors would be with the audience, all sitting cross-legged on the dancefloor of the Mood nightclub in the Omni Centre. Not a radical protest against the new proposals for lap-dancing bars.

In the event, it looked more like a primary school class than anything else.

A story-telling lesson with the teachers easy to spot as the ones wearing plain red T-shirts.

Except that the language is rather more graphic than you would wish to hear used in Primary One.

Although the different names which women around the world use for their genitalia do come home to include those from Falkirk, Muirhhouse and Fountainbridge.

Which is the whole point of the Vagina Monologues - the edited highlights of hundreds of interviews with women about their vaginas. It takes words which are usually used in a vicious and abusive manner and reclaims them by saying them out loud in public.

On the one hand it is a seriously liberating action - and on the other it is extremely funny. It is a double effect which Norma Kinnear is all too happy to exploit in the two monologues she delivers to start and finish the whole production.

From the naming of the parts which opens the show to her grand finale, when she names and demonstrates a variety of different kinds of moan which a woman might give in finding pleasure from those parts, Norma Kinnear knows exactly how to keep her audience in stitches.

Her vocal dexterity is not merely graphic. It also succeeds in capturing a variety of different Scottish accents. And reflects, in terms which are not necessarily flattering, the social makeup of those areas. Which is all great fun and succeeds in putting the audience at their ease. As does the sitting around with a vodka and coke from the bar.

In fact, it is more like being at a party around someone's house with different people standing up to do their pieces.

Except that it is not all comedy. Fiona Mitchell starts the gentle movement towards seriousness with a monologue about a woman whose husband asks her to shave - and when she does it is not enough to stop him sleeping around.

Fiona Mitchell relates an older woman's memories of her first, embarrassing kiss that produced the kind of severe reaction that would embarrass anyone - and was enough to put her off sex for life.

If Pauline Dickson's opening salvo is also serious, about a woman's anger at the different ways that fashion and hygiene are uncomfortable, it drew a knowing laugh and spontaneous applause from many of the women sitting around her. And Gabrielle Pavone speaks every woman's mind who has been harassed because her skirt is short.

It is all subtly done, as the monologues gravitate towards the truly horrific. The recollections of rape as an act of war - as was used against interviewees who survived some of the horrors of Bosnia. Or the act of female circumcision, which is still common in some parts of the world.

It is serious stuff. But this seemingly casual production is paced in just the right way to let you go home laughing.

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/whatson.cfm?id=656162006