by Sheila Westfall

Created on: August 19, 2008

Since its premier in 1996, The Vagina Monologues has been performed thousands of times around the world. It has even appeared in ultra-conservative Afghanistan. I have had the privilege of seeing the play performed three times and performing in it once. Each time it has been an enlightening and empowering experience unlike any other.

To see Eve Ensler, the play's author, interpret her work gives you a sense of what each monologue means. She has collected each story to represent the widely differing relationships that women have with their vaginas and it is clear that this is very important to her. The vagina is what makes us women but it is a body part that elicits complex feelings. We are taught that it is dirty. It can be abused in an act of aggression or war. Or it can be treated with love and respect. It can become a source of pride, a place from which a woman draws power. Each of these is addressed in the play.

In "The Flood" an elderly Jewish woman is reluctant to discuss her "down there." She had a bad experience as a teenager and since then she's ignored the area entirely. But slowly, she opens up and ultimately feels better for having told her story. This is both humorous and telling of a generation that was taught that the vagina is something that simply isn't discussed. Also in the entertainment line is "My Angry Vagina" in which a woman recounts everything that makes her vagina angry - tampons, thong underwear, and the scratchy gowns at the gynocologist. It's one of the funniest monologues in the show but it's also an important commentary on the relationship between woman and vagina. It shows that it can be a healthy relationship and one that is worth standing up for.

Ensler would have been quite remiss if she had not also included the tragic side of the vagina. Fortunately she recognizes the importance of showing the physical and emotional pain that can be inflicted through it. In "My Vagina Was My Village" two different performers recount a woman's life before and after being raped by Bosnian soldiers. Prior to the war her vagina was a source of happiness and life but it is now broken and too painful to acknowledge. It is a heartbreaking performance worthy of the Obie that the show ultimately won.

However, the vagina can also be a source of celebration. In "The Vagnia Workshop" a woman looks at herself with a hand mirror and becomes mesmerized. "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy" is a tale of pleasuring women and includes a shock inducing series of orgasmic cries and moans. And "I Was There in The Room" is Ensler's personal story of watching her grandson's birth. She is in awe of what the vagina is capable of, how it can love and sacrifice and forgive.

The monologues discussed here are only a sample of those offered. And there is no way to truly describe the message of each work and what it means because it will mean something different to every woman and every man. It is touching. It is inspirational. It is a masterpiece.

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