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Plays aim to raise awareness,
money to fight violence against women
written by Jen Reeder
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| Katie Brost, left, and
Krista Malek, right, practice a scene for Fort Lewis
College’s upcoming performance of the ‘Vagina
Monologues.’/Photo by Todd Newcomer. |
“If your vagina could talk, what would
it say, in two words?”
“Slow down...Feed me...Yum, yum...Think again...Stay
home...Let’s play...Don’t stop...Come inside...Not
yet... Rock me ...Bonjour... Where’s Brian?”
—The Vagina Monologues
The sight of women reading these words onstage this week
can mean only one thing: “The Vagina Monologues”
have returned to Durango. Like last year, there will be
two productions – one community production and one
Fort Lewis College production – to celebrate Valentine’s
Day as part of the “V-Day” movement to end
violence against women.
Helen Gregory, director of the community play that will
take place at the Smiley Theater, said “The Vagina
Monologues” are based on interviews by Eve Ensler,
who asked hundreds of women to talk about vaginas. The
resulting interviews led to a collection of monologues
– some verbatim, some inspired by a combination
of women – for a play that “runs the gamut
of emotions,” Gregory said. The monologues also
were compiled into a book of the same name.
Monologues range from humorous (“Let’s just
start with the word ‘vagina.’ It sounds like
an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: ‘Hurry,
Nurse, bring me the vagina.’”) to solemn,
such as the Native American woman who discusses her experiences
with domestic violence. No two productions are alike,
as the script allows directors to select which monologues
to include. “Vagina Facts” are interspersed
throughout the play, and people from the community can
give personal testimonials before the plays begin.
“I like to give women the opportunity to empower
themselves,” said Sam Christenson, an FLC senior
and director of the campus production. She said it is
important to make it acceptable to talk about the vagina,
and that giving it an identity makes it harder for violence
to continue to be so prevalent in society. Many of the
22 cast members, only one of whom is a theater student,
have become more comfortable with the subject matter,
even though before production began some “couldn’t
say vagina without crossing their legs or blushing,”
Christenson said.
She said audience members usually relate to at least
one monologue, particularly the last one in her play,
which is about giving birth.
“There’s not one person who can say that
this is not an issue that affects them, because we all
enter this world through the vagina,” Christenson
said.
“The Vagina Monologues” debuted in 1998 in
New York City, where 2,500 people flocked to see the celebrity
cast that included Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Glenn
Close, Winona Ryder, Lily Tomlin and Rosie Perez. The
production raised more than $100,000 to launch the V-Day
movement. In 1999, 70 V-Day events were held throughout
the country, and last year that number grew to 800 events
that raised more than $7 million for nonprofit organizations
dedicated to eradicating violence against women around
the globe.
Gregory said it’s great to have the play produced
locally.
“People think that we’re in a small community
and that we’re immune to the violence that surrounds
our country and our world...but we’re not,”
she said.
Because the actors in “The Vagina Monologues”
are volunteers, almost all of the money raised by the
community production will go to Alternative Horizons,
a Durango-based domestic violence advocacy group. Additionally,
audience members can take their ticket stubs to Steamworks
Brewing after the show for $2 pints, with all the proceeds
also going to Alternative Horizons. Last year the production
raised close to $5,000 for the organization, Gregory said.
Most of the proceeds from the FLC production will be
donated to the Rape Intervention Team, with about 10 percent
going to the Feminist Voice, a campus organization that
sponsors the college play as well as Domestic Violence
Awareness Week at the college, among other activities.
Last year, the play raised $3,900 for the Rape Intervention
Team and $400 for the Revolutionary Association of the
Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which sought to liberate
women from the oppression of the Taliban.
Roseann Kutzleb, executive director of Alternative Horizons,
said the V-Day event is a great start to the organization’s
25th anniversary. “It’s a big fund-raiser
for us, which is wonderful in stringent economic times,”
she said. “What it means to the organization is
outreach and education.”
She said that Gregory, who has extensive professional
theater experience, is “phenomenal” for pulling
this event together two years in a row.
“I think it’s an unbelievably funny and fun
event, and brings awareness to women’s issues,”
she said, adding that the play also is special because
it also touches on more serious issues as well.
Members of the Rape Intervention Team had similar praise
for the production. “The Rape Intervention Team
is extremely thankful and appreciative to the students
producing ‘The Vagina Monologues,’”
said Executive Director Liane Jollon. “Not only
are we happy to be the beneficiary, we’re also very
excited to see this powerful play in this community. Even
if we weren’t getting the donation, we’d be
really excited for them.”
FLC director Christenson said the Rape Intervention Team
is particularly close to her heart, as a volunteer on
the group’s hotline and a survivor of a sexual assault.
“We aren’t getting any (school) credit for
this or monetary reimbursement – we just think it’s
important,” she said.
But despite good intentions, the two directors faced
some misconceptions and challenges when bringing a play
with “Vagina” in its title to Durango for
the first time last year. Gregory said that a skeptical
woman asked her, “Do they show body parts?”
and that a male protester blew an air horn in the first
moments of last year’s production until audience
members forcibly escorted him out of the theater. Christenson
has faced challenges in promoting the event, such as not
being allowed to hang posters in dorms because of breasts
on the posters, and was told “by the powers that
be” that it was unacceptable to have a person in
a vagina costume walk around campus.
Still, the plays should appeal to most adults.
“You don’t have to all of the sudden stop
shaving if you come see it,” Christenson said with
a laugh. “This is not some sort of feminist manifesto
– it’s great entertainment.”
Gregory said that men should not be afraid to attend,
either.
“People think it’s an evening of male bashing
but it’s not,” Gregory said. “It’s
a celebration of women.”
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