By Briyah Paley
Vagina is a word that some people are uncomfortable saying. However, the twelve young women performing in Northeastern’s production of “The Vagina Monologues” at the Blackman Auditorium on Monday and Tuesday night said it so many times, that it wasn’t embarassing afterall.
“It’s not so easy to even find your own vagina!” one screamed.
“It sounds like an infection,” said another.
Some of what the play covered was masturbation, sex, orgasms, periods, birth, mutilation, rape, slang names for vaginas, what they would wear if they got dressed and what they would say if they talked.
“The Vagina Monologues” publication, written by Eve Ensler from a compilation of interviews she conducted, started in 1998. The V-Day Initiative, a movement to end violence toward women, grew from the book and now many college groups perform the play on or near Valentine’s Day each year, raising awareness and funds for domestic violence programs. The first V-Days happened in New York, London and Los Angeles. In these performances, Ensler was joined by famous women, such as Winona Ryder, Whoopi Goldberg, Calista Flockhart and others.
One monologue, titled “The Flood,” was about a 72-year-old woman who had never had an orgasm. Laura Dunn, a middler business major, played the role and had no trouble getting into character.
“I thought of my grandmother,” she said. “She’s very crotchety.”
Although many parts of the play were hilarious, the audience silenced when the subject turned to female mutilation and rape.
In 2000, Ensler traveled to Afghanistan and interviewed some women there. What she found was horrifying. The monologue entitled, “My Vagina Was My Village,” is a tale of a woman’s vagina literally being invaded by soldiers. It was sad and moving to watch.
Back on the lighter side, the crowd roared with laughter as freshman theater major Theodora Greece went through all the possible moans out there (“The Jewish moan: noo, noo, noo!”).
The production was also educational.
Did you know that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve fibers? That’s twice the number found in the penis.
The members of the cast who talked to The News had seen the play before and knew it was something they had to be a part of.
“It’s important for people to know about,” said Beatriz Gomez, a junior theater major.
Freshman theater major Mike Budwey had read the book before, but he had never seen it performed live.
“I thought it was an amazing experience to see,” he said.
Selene Neuburg, also a freshman theater major, agreed.
“Wow. I’d never seen anything like it. The book doesn’t even compare,” she said.
About 60 women auditioned for the production’s twelve parts, and it was up to director Susan Terzian Cartiglia, a senior theater and cinema studies major, to choose. She herself has been in “The Vagina Monologues” for the past three years. Once they had made it through the audition process, it was time for six weeks of rehearsing, on weekends as a group and once a week individually. The group even became good friends.
“We had such a connection, and we worked so well together,” Carly Assael, a freshman theater major said. “We’re like vagina pals.”
