Play combines activism and art
By Mariel Martinez
April 20, 2009 9:22 p.m.
Vuh-jahy-nuh (vagina) has a simple pronunciation, so why are so many afraid to say it?
The play “The Vagina Monologues” draws from this paradox ““ exploring the stigmas associated with the vagina in relation to the social treatment of women. Written by award-winning playwright and devoted activist Eve Ensler, it has become an important component of “V-Day” (also started by Ensler), a global movement to end violence against girls and women.
UCLA’s 2009 production of “The Vagina Monologues” is part of the annual college campaign and will run Saturday and Sunday in De Neve Auditorium. This year’s rendition is ready to spark conversation regarding much ignored issues through the powerful combination of activism and art.
“This is an opportunity to give something back through art. I have people in my life that relate to this text, and there’s still a lot of shame in it,” said Jakquelyn Sullivan, UCLA staff member and co-director of the production. “That’s what I like about this play ““ it forces people to confront these issues, issues that happen all over the world.”
Violence against women is a subject that feels foreign to many, yet the grim reality is that it is more prevalent than most realize.
“We had this exercise during rehearsals where we stood on one side of the room and were asked questions,” said Emily Wang, a fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student and co-director of the show. “If you answered “˜yes’ to the questions, you moved across. When we were asked, “˜Walk if you know someone who has been a victim of sexual assault,’ we all walked across.”
It was moments like these that reminded the cast and directors the relevance that these issues have in everyone’s lives, as well as the urgent necessity to spread Ensler’s work to as many people as possible.
“People think that rape is something that’s hush hush, because many think that doesn’t happen to “˜good people,'” Wang said. “But that’s not true. It could happen to you, or you could have done it and not realized it.”
The play contains monologues ranging from happy, sad, hilarious and outrageous. This wide palette of emotions work toward garnering the attention of both men and women.
“Part of putting on this production is having men join the cause. It’s the partnership between women and men, the understanding between them that will help the movement,” Sullivan said. “It can’t be us against them; it has to be a partnership.”
The movement each year has a spotlight campaign that focuses on a specific group of women that are victims of violent acts. This year’s spotlight is on the women and girls of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since 1996, sexual violence has been inflicted on these girls and women as a weapon of war. The violent acts perpetrated so far are horrifying, and numbers alone show that more than 200,000 women and girls have been raped since the war began.
“It is really important that we do everything that we can to help these women. The atrocities that are happening there will make you completely appalled ““ rape with weapons, chopping off genitals, sexual assault ranging from little girls to women as old as 87,” Wang said. “And the government does nothing about it. The perpetrators get to walk away from these crimes.”
There will be 18 monologues this year, along with a premiere piece about Hurricane Katrina. This piece was specifically chosen by the directors because of its important message.
“The spotlight campaign a couple years ago was Hurricane Katrina, but people didn’t understand the connection,” Sullivan said. “The connection, as Eve Ensler described it, was that New Orleans is like the vagina. We go there for holidays to go have fun, but when something bad happens, we abandon it.”
By providing people with information and creating active dialogue, the cast and directors are working to prevent any more years of abandonment from taking place.
“There’s an anonymity that we hide behind. We’re on the other side of the world (in regard to the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and we don’t know what’s going on,” said Nanci Zhang, a fourth-year Afro-American studies student and cast member.
“We duck behind this anonymity. It helps us to feel like it’s not our problem, when in truth there is such a responsibility on us. It is inexcusable to not do anything.”
