Photo Submitted by Hilarie Mae Dahl The Vagina Monologues cast performed in the Hartwell Dance Theater on Feb. 16 and 17. The performance scheduled for Wednesday Feb. 14, “V-Day,” was cancelled due to snow.

‘Vagina’ empowers women
‘Monologues’-induced dose of estrogen alters one man’s perspective
By Joel Leonard Chaffee
STAFF WRITER

Two performances of The Vagina Monologues were presented by the Women’s Center Feb. 16 and 17. The show was sponsored by the Women’s Studies Organization and the Better Community Coalition, and is part of an annual, worldwide V-Day (Valentine, Vagina and Victory) movement, which was spawned by Monologues playwright and performer Eve Ensler. V-Day is “an organized response against violence toward women,” and performances of The Vagina Monologues in more than 70 countries help raise money for dozens of women’s organizations, including the Rochester chapter of The National Organization for Women (NOW).

Three layers of black curtains, menacingly vaginal, adorned the Hartwell Dance Theater’s stage. Having not seen or heard a line from The Vagina Monologues, and almost oppressively aware of my gender (male), I only know I’m expecting to hear the word with frequency. “Vagina.” It will be a tendency throughout the evening to wonder how altered my perceptions are because it is this play, and none other, that I am witnessing. If it were, say, Our Town or Death of Salesman, the black curtains might not seem so vaginal. And also, at least consciously, menacing.

Monologues suggests a hyper-awareness of language and thought, so that every word or image becomes symbolic of a greater oppression.

The cast’s outfits — black shoes, slacks, skirts, dresses, blouses and shirts with pink adornments of jewelry, hair clips and even a lei —  say “Statement. This is explicit. We will be speaking with authority.” I am unable to tell if they are truly making an authoritative statement with the costume choices or if I feel this way because I am male and fear empowered women. I feel ignorant being in a situation wherein the traditional (and agitated) minority, or unempowered women, are now the empowered majority. There is no way to act that will convince anyone (mostly myself), that I am comfortable, which is what is really making me uncomfortable — the supposed misperception of my comfort/discomfort.

By Mareesa Nicosia, LIFESTYLES EDITOR Trina Quinn performed “The Little Coochy-Snorcher that Could.”

During the course of the play I will consider, and reconsider, the minutest details of my thought and behavior. I cannot stop licking my lips, and am uncertain whether this is because they are chapped or because women onstage are talking about cunnilingus. I can’t tell if I’m not getting an erection because I’m actually not turned on by women speaking so openly (and with such robustness, thanks to the excellent cast) about vaginas or because I have to urinate with urgency. When I don’t laugh as heartily as the rest of the audience, is it because I’m the very stooge the show attempts, in part, to mock/chide/get a rise out of? Is it because I’m not a female and the situation is akin to being a temp who doesn’t get all the “in jokes” at the office, or is it just an issue of personal funny-bones?

I am conscious that I keep tucking my thumb into my fist but cannot recall if I’d always done that as a personal tic or had just picked it up tonight, and whether it mattered or not when the tic began at all.

The Vagina Monologues wants to use taboo words and reclaim them, particularly “cunt,” to remove the stigma attached to female sexuality. We experience the story of an elderly woman masturbating for the first time and finding her clitoris; about a sea of vaginal juice in a diner; about rape and about birth. One character calls her vagina a “coochy-snorcher.” (You have to use humor to discuss some of this stuff — unless you’re Ingmar Bergman.) The play implies that if you curtsy your way around taboo words then you are a defeatist, a square, a denier of reality and traitor to the cause. I recall snickering about coochy-snorchers with my seventh grade peers before most of us knew top from bottom, making jokes about fish (usually tuna) swimming in the vaginas of undesirable girls. I wonder about calling women “undesirable” and whether the phrase “top from bottom” is too cute. This is the kind of thought the play encourages: That which was either too silly or too shameful to have been recognized as relevant.

Director Hilarie Mae Dahl notes in the show’s bulletin that “The Vagina Monologues offers a context for women’s voices, an outlet for their anger and an opportunity to heal,” and dedicates the performance to “the women who go unheard and uncelebrated.” 

I am tempted to ponder what “The Penis Monologues” would be like, and I hear the voice of my sister saying, “The whole world is ‘The Penis Monologues.’” I imagine a man onstage talking about jism, wet dreams, the male ritual of naming the penis, complaints about vulnerable scrotums — basically, a William S. Burroughs novel. I wonder if I’d be laughing heartily or cringing, as I did when the stage was set with seven women and the topic of menstruation was introduced, which made me feel (the cringing) both a simpleton and realistic.

The characters talk about sexual discovery, about lifetimes spent with nary an orgasm, and I wonder who taught me the trade. I wonder what the larger picture is outside of this immediate, masturbatory idea that I am not grasping fully. A character speaks of women learning to pleasure themselves so as to never need a man, and I think, “That’s fine, but don’t you wish to share it, like all of life’s grand experiences?”

 The show suggests not only a community of womanhood with which to live and experience, but also an almost solipsistic individuality.

Is the play an appeal for redress? I think so. An open rebellion? Somewhat. As a male I feel I’m invited to the party but not allowed to say anything, or at least have to be willing to subject myself to obligatory, celebratory ridicule if I do. I can’t decide if I should look for a place to sign a petition or one at which to surrender my arms.

And then Nikki Trombley was onstage again, adeptly and with a smirk performing the “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” monologue, the show’s pinnacle, which itself reaches a zenith featuring the various moans exhibited by various women, with Trombley writhing on the floor and the audience riotous with hilarity. I shrugged off the barrage of self-aware second and triple-guessing and laughed out the strangeness, the absurdity.