Monologues Creator Addresses Crowd

Eve Ensler, the creator of the theater production, the Vagina Monologues, spoke last night in the ARCO forum about art's ability to effect change in the political arena.

The Vagina Monologues chronicles stories of a woman's relationship to her vagina, and draws its material from Ensler's interviews with two hundred women of all ages and origins.

Ensler described the play as "the biography of a vagina which then becomes the story of women themselves, told by their vaginas."

The play's commercial success catapulted the self-described life-time activist into prominence. Productions of the Vagina Monologues grace the stages of most major cities and have had participants such as Kate Winslett and Susan Sarandon.

Ensler's speech last night addressed the production's power to inspire a campaign to curb violence against women.

Happy to embrace the title the "Vagina Lady," Ensler described the political agenda of the piece to the mostly female audience of about 200.

"Art gets around things. If you just say 'vagina,' you communicate in a different way," she said. "It doesn't matter if you're on the right or the left, but you see that we have to stop the patterns of violence against women."

She said art has a disarming effect for audience members that inspires open dialogue about personal history.

"I've had thousands of women tell me how they have been raped, beaten or mutilated," she said.

For these women, the theatrical production often proves emotionally difficult.

"Women sometimes have to leave or just faint when they hear some of the show. It just brings back memories," Ensler said.

The Vagina Monologues rose to enough prominence to enable Ensler and others to create "V-day," held on or near Valentine's day, to more fully address the discourse about women and their sexuality.

"V-day is for vagina, anti-violence and finally the victory against violence," Ensler said.

V-day is a day devoted to rallies that protest rape, incest and brutality against women, and includes non-profit performances of the Vagina Monologues, whose proceeds are donated to local women's groups.

"We hold it on Valentine's Day because these are crimes that should be actions of love," she said. "We helped 250 colleges hold the production and all the money went right into the communities."

Harvard held a one-time performance of the production this year in the week before V-day.

This year's national V-day rally filled the 18,000 person Madison Square Garden.

"We called it 'Take Back the Garden,'" Ensler said.

The Vagina Monologues has been performed in more than 17 countries this year.

Ensler said she sees the production as a geopolitical stimulus for action. One of the performances involved Macedonian women from various ethnic backgrounds.

"It was the first time in history that these Macedonians came together to say the word 'vagina' in their native tongue. If you say vagina, you can communicate in a different way than you can about ethnic groups," she said.

Ensler called for an end to the desecration of women, particularly in Afghanistan and in Africa, where she said more than 2 million women experience genital mutilation against their will.

Calling the sex trade "shocking," Ensler stressed the urgency of proactively combating violence against women.

"It is crucial to save women," she said. "We are not thriving to half our capacity. We need to be able to be free to create and think."

Future plans to promote Ensler's agenda include an HBO special, a series of monologues geared toward younger girls and a grant program to fund creative ways to combat rape.