Warm Up the Duck Lips

Performances of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ are part of a month-long celebration of women’s rights.

By: Susan Van Dongen

"Artricia

TimeOFF/Mark Czajkowski
Above: Artricia Lorjuste (left) rehearses with Nancy Capasso, Caryn Pinedo, Pam Gersht and Hannah Flynn for the Rider University production of The Vagina Monologues.


   A recent lecture in connection with the 50th anniversary of Levittown, Pa., mentioned a list of dos and don’ts for suburban married women, circa 1953. These included "greet (your husband) with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him," "have dinner ready" and "make the evening his." The very last suggestion — and probably the most frightening — was "a good wife knows her place."
   Whoever wrote those Stepford Wife instructions would be flabbergasted at the in-your-face female characters in playwright Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, on stage at Rider University’s Yvonne Theatre Feb. 11-12. In fact, the very mention of the "v-word" would have sent June Cleaver-types to the medicine cabinet in search of smelling salts.
   The six strong women in the play embody their vaginas, giving this very private part of a woman’s body a voice that is frequently funny but also sad, intimate, disturbing and provocative. Most of all, the voice and the subject matter are absolutely honest.
   "It’s essentially women talking to each other about being a woman," says director Miriam Mills, an adjunct assistant professor of fine arts at Rider. "These are things that we never used to talk about, but now we do. The stories range from a discussion of female genital mutilation to menstruation and sexual issues, from witnessing childbirth to rape. Some of it is very funny, some of it is moving and some will hopefully make you angry."
   Jointly sponsored by Rider’s Fine Arts Department and the Gender Studies Program, The Vagina Monologues will highlight the university’s V-Day activities, which run Feb. 4-11. V-Day, which grew out of early performances of The Vagina Monologues, is a national celebration of women’s strength as well as a day to promote awareness of violence toward women and girls.
   It’s been only five years since the inception of V-Day — which stands for victory, valentine and vagina — but staging fund-raising productions of The Vagina Monologues has become a new tradition. Ms. Mills hopes the show’s run at the Yvonne Theater will raise $10,000, which Rider has earmarked for Womanspace, the women’s shelter in Lawrence.
   "We hope to fill the theater with students and people from the community," Ms. Mills says.

"Caryn

TimeOFF/Mark Czajkowski
Above, Caryn Pinedo simulates ecstasy.


   Based on the playwright’s interviews with more than 200 women, The Vagina Monologues celebrates women’s sexuality and strength and exposes the violations women endure throughout the world. The Obie-winning play has been translated into 22 languages and runs almost constantly in theaters nationally and internationally.
   First staged in 1998, The Vagina Monologues resonated with women from all walks of life and was the catalyst for V-Day, a non-profit corporation and global movement that supports grassroot anti-violence organizations through the world. The phenomenon grew out of Ms. Ensler’s conversations with women who approached her after seeing early performances of The Vagina Monologues to talk about their own experiences. Ms. Ensler began to use performances of the play to raise funds for organizations working to stop these travesties and foster women’s rights.
   V-Day, which originally took place only on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, has evolved into weeks of events and social action campaigns. Last year, more than 800 benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues were performed around the world, raising more than $7 million dollars. In its first five years, the V-Day movement has raised some $13.5 million dollars and was named one of Worth magazine’s "100 Best Charities" in 2001.
   "There was such an overwhelming response," Ms. Mills says. "Eve Ensler gives away the rights to the show for free, but in return we have to give the money from the production to a women’s group involved in raising awareness about violence toward women."
   Ms. Mills, who has been at Rider for about seven years, teaches acting and directs numerous theatrical productions. She first saw The Vagina Monologues in New York with her husband who "went willingly, but wasn’t too thrilled," she says, laughing.
   "I thought, ‘This is wonderful, I’d love to do it,’ but when I tried to acquire the rights, I was informed of the stipulations," Ms. Mills says. "I figured we could still do it, though, and contacted the fine arts and the gender studies departments. Fine arts gave me the desire and the space, and gender studies took care of the producing and all the other details that needed to be done."

From left, Rachel Messler, Artricia Lorjuste, Nancy Capasso, Caryn Pinedo, Pam Gersht and Hannah Flynn; Miriam Mills, below, directs at Rider’s Yvonne Theatre. "From

TimeOFF photos/Mark Czajkowski
"Miriam


   The staging of the production is unusual, probably because it evolved from Ms. Ensler’s original one-woman show. The six women — all dressed in basic black and red — don’t move around the stage or even stand to deliver their lines. They sit on stools and read from notebooks resting in front of them on black music stands.
   The action is all in the women’s voices, expressions and interplay — as well as the words themselves.
   "Basically, they sit and read the monologues, which sounds easy but is infinitely harder than it looks," Ms. Mills says. For some parts of the play, the challenge must be keeping a straight face. One passage — echoing George Carlin’s "Seven Words You Can’t Say on the Radio" — is essentially an international thesaurus of expressions for "vagina."
   "In Westchester, it’s ‘pussycat,’" says Vagina Number Three, played by Nancy Capasso. "As in ‘Darling, don’t wear your underwear under your pajamas. You have to air out your pussycat.’"
   Another passage poses the question, "If your vagina could talk, what would it say?"
   "Slow down," shout all six women in unison.
   The monologues broach issues such as re-discovering sensuality, beauty in our culture and maturing. A bit about visiting the gynecologist offers suggestions for fur-lined stirrups and warming up the "duck lips" — Vagina Number Three’s term for the notoriously cold steel implement used in a pelvic exam.
   Sexual repression is the topic that came from an interview with a 72-year-old woman. Vagina Number Six talks poignantly about how she cut herself off from her sexuality after an embarrassing incident as a young woman. Initially, she doesn’t want to talk at all and refers to her vagina as "down there."
   "I haven’t been ‘down there’ since 1953," says Linda Luedeke, playing the role. "No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Eisenhower."
   Interestingly, Ms. Luedeke isn’t one of Ms. Mill’s acting students, but the wife of Rider’s president, Dr. J. Barton Luedeke. Ms. Mills specifically sought people not normally involved in theater when she cast the show.
   "So many of my actors jumped on this when they heard we were going to do it," Ms. Mills says. "But I also wanted to get non-actors involved. In addition to Linda, we have one of our professors doing a part. We wanted to make it inclusive to actors, students, faculty and administration. That way it became more than an event just for students — it became an event for women."
The Vagina Monologues will be performed at Rider University’s Yvonne Theater, Fine Arts Building, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrenceville, Feb. 11, 8 p.m., Feb. 12, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets cost $10; sponsorship tickets cost $50 and $100. For information, call (609) 896-5303. To participate in Rider’s V-Day, Feb 4-11, call (609) 896-5168. On the Web: www.rider.edu.
The Vagina Monologues will also be performed at The College of New Jersey, Campus Music Hall, Route 31, Ewing, Feb. 14-15, 8 p.m.; and at Princeton University, Frist Campus Center, Nassau Street, Princeton, Feb. 13-15, 8 p.m. For information, call (609) 394-0136.
For information about V-Day, visit www.vday.org. For information about Womanspace, visit www.womanspace.org