|
Saturday, April 09, 2005
"Down There"
By Danilo Adorador III
(Conclusion)
THE play as I slowly realized, is about reconnecting women--not just with this private part of their bodies, or with sexuality, but also with language itself.
But the play was not a Vagina Party in its entirety. There was a section entitled "My Vagina Was My Village," based on true accounts of Bosnian rape victims.
The comedic tone of the play drastically shifted as a poem, so powerfully interpreted by a local stage actress (I suppose), depicting from a point of view of a Bosnian woman who had been imprisoned and subjected to gang rape and torture as part of the systematic violence against women that was a tactic of the Bosnian Serb forces in the wars of the early 90's.
There were parts that discussed for few minutes the oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan prior to its liberation from Taliban rule.
This particular play was based on Ensler's report when she had visited the country and met with women who were carrying on clandestine organizing of classes, health services and other prohibited activities.
Then there was an elderly Jewish woman who can barely talk about "down there", whose first teenage sexual experience led to a lifetime of shame: "Closed due to flooding."
There is the British woman who said she found her true self after a workshop with masturbation guru Betty Dodson, lying on a blue mat staring in wonderment at her vulva via a hand mirror. Here are some excerpts:
"My vagina amazed me. I couldn't speak when it came my turn in the workshop. I was speechless. I had awakened to what the woman who ran the workshop called "vaginal wonder."
And perhaps the women's favorite:
"My vagina is a shell, a tulip, and a destiny. I am arriving as I am beginning to leave. My vagina, my vagina, me."
Unexpectedly, the seriocomic play began manifesting itself again with the turn of The Angry Vagina. This hilarious story depicts a vagina that is "pissed off" by a world that seems to prize women's discomfort, from gynecological exams to dry tampons to feminine hygiene sprays with floral scents.
"Why can't they just work with the vagina instead of torture it with thong underwear that get stuck in it, douches, sprays, pap exams.... Why not shower it with kindness and chocolates?"
The audience could not stop laughing at this part of the monologue.
Then there was Bob. The play was rendered in Filipino so that the language used couldn't have been more unprintable, but nevertheless, the vernacular rendition gave justice to the monologue itself.
Here is how Bob is described in the monologue:
"Bob was the most ordinary man I ever met. He was thin and tall and nondescript and wore khaki clothes. Bob did not like spicy foods or listen to Prodigy. He had no interest in sexy lingerie. In the summer, he spent time in the shade...He wasn't very funny or articulate or mysterious...I didn't particularly like Bob."
It continues:
"Turned out that Bob loved vaginas. He was a connoisseur.He loved the way they felt, the way they tasted, the way they smelled, but most importantly he loved the way they looked...He stayed looking for almost an hour as if he were studying a map, observing the moon, staring into my eyes, but it was my vagina. . . I began to swell, began to feel proud."
The monologue's message may have been that men, while most of the time are the leading women's abusers, are also the redeemer of Eve's tribe.
While perhaps, most abusers are brutal, cruel, insensitive and aggressive, Bob represents a large segment of the masculine population that values womanhood.
(April 9, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
|
