The Vagina Monologues is a daring
and totally honest look at a rarely discussed, rarely
mentioned part of the female anatomy – the vagina.
The monologues are true life stories based on interviews
that the writer, Eve Ensler, conducted with women
of various ethnicities, classes, religions and age
groups.
"I decided to talk to women
about their vaginas, to do vagina interviews, which
became vagina monologues… At first women were
reluctant to talk. They were a little shy. But once
they got going, you could not stop them. Women secretly
love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited,
mainly because no one’s ever asked them before,"
explains Eve Ensler on the back cover of her book,
published by Virago Press in 2001.
The Vagina Monologues has
been directed and performed in several countries of
the world and most of the performances raise money
and consciousness for local groups that work to stop
violence toward women.
The vagina tales take the reader,
listener or viewer through various intense emotions
– pain, pleasure, hurt, joy - as the intimate
life stories unfold about love, orgasm, betrayal,
self-discovery, rape, domestic violence, abuse, childbirth,
amongst other experiences of women.
The Vagina Monologues in
Nigeria enjoyed a cast made up of famous Nollywood
actresses like Joke Silva (also producer), Buki Ajayi,
Bimbo Akintola and Iretiola Doyle who plays a leading
role in one of Nigeria’s comedy shows –
Fuji House of Commotion. Najite Dede directed the
production. The amateur actresses among the cast also
gave commendable performances.
Iretiola Doyle’s rendition
of "My Angry Vagina" with a lot of attitude
and panache was quite captivating:
My vagina’s angry. It
is. It's pissed off. My vagina’s furious and
it needs to talk…You need to work with the
vagina, introduce it to things, prepare the way.
That's what foreplay's all about. You got to convince
my vagina, seduce my vagina, engage my vagina’s
trust…
Other performances such as "Reclaiming
Cunt" and "My Vagina Was My Village"
by Joke Silva; "The Little Coochi Snorcher That
Could" and "The Flood" were splendidly
interpreted by the various actresses and had the audience
reeling between laughter and tears.
…Not since they
took turns for seven days smelling like faeces and
smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside
me. I became a river of poison and pus and all the
crops died, and the fish ("My Vagina Was
My Village" based on a narrative from a woman
who survived the war in Bosnia).
The staging of The Vagina Monologues
in Nigeria was initiated by a non-governmental
organisation, the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy
(KIND). All the proceeds from the shows went to Sophia’s
Place – a shelter in Lagos run by Project Alert
- for victims of domestic violence whose lives are
under threat and who need a safe haven in which to
recover.
The Vagina Monologue was
staged in Abuja at the National Centre for Women Development
on the International Women’s Day, March 8, 2006,
and at the British Council grounds in Abuja on March
10. The Lagos shows took place at the Muson Centre
on the 15th and 16th of March and at the Auditorium
of the University of Lagos on March 18. |
