I really don't quite know what to make of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. On the one hand I admire actor Eve Ensler for her versatility in performing so many different monologues embodying the experiences of her interviewees - all of them of different ages, backgrounds, and social experiences. She communicates the thoughts of a prostitute, a New York Jew, a woman experiencing the embarrassing sight of a man staring at her vagina, another person who has never had sexual intercourse, and - most interestingly - the experiences of Bosnian women kept as sex slaves during the civil war of the mid-Nineties.
All of these monologues reflect the desire to bring out into the open a subject normally hidden under the wraps of civilized societies - the significance of the vagina, both personally and socially. Customarily perceived as an object of titillation by men, Ensler shows how it means different things to different people - there are those who would quite happily use the c-word to describe it, even though for many people that would be considered thoroughly offensive.
Ensler is an accomplished performer; we see her backstage in this film, as well as hearing extracts from some of her interviewees who are brave enough to recall their experiences on camera. Ensler herself enjoys keeping an audience amused, and can readily adopt different personae.
On the other hand, there is something almost too controlled about her stage persona. We can admire her technique, but we never feel that she inhabits the roles she plays. Consequently there is a strong sense of mimicry about THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES; rather like a western colonialist, Ensler speaks for her interviewees rather than encouraging them to speak for themselves. This is especially true of her monologue when she impersonates the Bosnian women, which is mediated through Ensler's western consciousness rather than making an attempt to empathize with a culturally distinct experience.
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES is an entertaining piece, but we can't help but think that it is has been deliberately cleaned, sanitized, and oriented towards the tastes of middle-class Broadway audiences rather than embodying the experiences of socially diverse people.
