This was the second performance of The Vagina Monologues I’ve seen. The first time was 2 years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it to the point that I thought about auditioning for it. After watching this year’s performance, however, I was glad I didn’t – more on this later. One thing I noted was that they never said that pictures and videos of the performance not be taken, unlike their request in the previous performance I had seen. Especially with the increased amount of skin and cast members just in their underwear, I felt uncomfortable seeing others take pictures and videos which could end up floating around without the cast’s permission.

Before leaving Rose House, GRF Sara asked a couple of questions about the relevancy of the language and conversation in a play written in the 90s and if staging such a play has political motive. I understand the concern that the play may be outdated in a sense. Heck, my first exposure to The Vagina Monologues was from a Mad TV sketch on youtube several years ago. But I never really felt it was too outdated. From my point of view, the play isn’t on the cutting edge of gender and sexuality issues, but I don’t think it ever was supposed to be. They add in stories and statistics from more recent years, but I’m not convinced that it means the play is trying to represent all gender and sexuality issues.

For me, the play is should be looked as a play about what the title tells you – vaginas. I think that the scenes are still relevant to many today, though they might be seen as too outdated my very progressive people. I wasn’t raised to think liberally about my body and sexuality or to embrace all things associated with having a vagina, and I think things like this play really help start a conversation for those not accustomed to those ideas. Like someone mentioned afterwards, it was surprising and empowering to see a crowd applauding talking about vaginas, and I don’t think it’s necessary to try and make it wholly comprehensive.

Once criticism of the play I can definitely agree with is the skewed negativity towards men. There were a lot of stories about negative sexual experiences with men, and the one scene that wasn’t was clearly introduced with the tone that this was an uncommon event. On the topic of how they introduced scenes, this production was pretty different from the last one I had seen, despite the fact that they included many of the same scenes. The staging was dynamic and unique enough and the cast was great at portraying exaggerated characters to get an audience reaction. One production choice that struck me as even more interesting was the scene about transgender experiences. The last production, if I’m remembering correctly, did not attach bodies or even faces to the stories, but the staging choice here was quite clearly representing transgender issues stepping out from behind shadows to be seen. This is the kind of change I can more easily understand, as in the past two years, there has been a lot more progress in public awareness of transgender issues.

The inclusion of the Cornell student-written segment was definitely a better reflection of the current conversation of body acceptance, what makes a woman a woman, and experiences that align more with the time period we grew up in. This, however, marked the beginning of the end of my enjoyment of the production. While I can’t remember exactly how the play ended the last time I saw it, I was disappointed by the ending this year. When Sara asked the question about the play being a political act, I thought that was baseless because from my previous experiences with it, it was more of a social movement to get people more comfortable talking about sex. The ending of this production, however, was clearly politically motivated.

There were certain things I could understand – the pink pussyhats for example. Other things seemed unnecessary for this performance. I get that current political situation in America is not ideal, and I too am frustrated when I see the same face dominating the news. But I don’t think that the production over-politicized the play. Sure, calling out a comment about grabbing someone by the pussy is relevant, but protesting the wall and the ‘this is what democracy looks like’ chant don’t fit with the intent of the play. While I agree with many of the issues they threw in in the closing scene, this was one time I felt extremely distant from the sentiment of social justice warriors and a liberal college campus. It seemed like most of the play was negated by the ending – that the message they wanted to get across was not about female empowerment, but about their dissent against the president. The ending left me with such a bad feeling that I didn’t feel motivated to applaud the cast on an otherwise good performance, but felt like if I didn’t, people would judge me for not supporting the cause. I don’t know how this post will be received, but all I wanted to say was that while I generally agree and support the want voice opinions, I feel like there’s a right place and time and that the ending to this performance muddled the original intent.