I have been awed by the sacredness of seeing a granddaughter born...just as it's being described in the final scene of "The Vagina Monologues". It lives in my memory more vividly than the birth of my own three children. Now, 16 years later, I'm seeing Shira (Hebrew for "song") perform in "The Vagina Monologues" at the Eureka Theatre in Northern California. She's the youngest member of the cast and is playing the most difficult role. In this production of Eve Ensler's outrageous series of monologues, women speak of what their vaginas have experienced. An ensemble cast is on stage at all times and tonight eight women are dividing the poignant and ribald tales.

As Shira's turn approaches, I can see her darkening into the mood of her part. At center stage for "My Vagina Was My Village," she uses the wrap of a large transparent scarf to enter the tortured body of a victim of mass rape, war rape, village rape. As the scarf encircles her face, her features become not Shira but a face so ancient in its tragic tale, it's from a Greek chorus. Stage light makes her face an orb of moon and slowly she accents her part as a stunned silence falls on the audience.

Eve Ensler has interviewed more than 200 women to create this work. Shira's monologue is based on a Muslim woman's experience in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war where it is estimated that between 20,000 -50,000 women and girls were raped as a systematic tactic of war. Like the holocaust, I know this part must be spoken to warn us that such inhumanity to our species scorches the whole earth.

My 16 year old granddaughter is acting this part. May she never in her life experience anything even remotely resembling it.

The playbill states: "Girls and women ages 16 to 24 experience the highest per capita rate of rape of any population group."

Others are shocked when we tell them what Shira is doing--"it's not appropriate for such a young girl to be in this play " and I'm a bit squeemish too. I've traveled here to acknowledge her bravery, to see how she will do this and to find any healing that may be coming towards our family through this process.

Just who is it that should play this part and how has Shira come to play it? Rape is not unfamiliar in our mother/daughter lineage - how can it be when "one in three women will be raped within their lifetime." Shira will review her own mother's experience of teenage rape as she prepares for her role. And my first experience of intercourse was what we now call "date rape" but no terminology for it existed back then.

And there are dark clouds in Shira's background. From an early age she has been close to child victims of incest and abuse having lived in a commune dedicated to helping them but lacking in enough adult supervision for such a damaged population.

My hands are locked into my daughter's and husband's hands. Shira's riveting performance ends, she unwraps the scarf, moves the transparent cloth beyond her face, and returns it to the stage altar. She becomes Shira again and resumes her stage place. We all want to enfold her in our arms (and one of the cast members does), but she is on stage and the next monologue "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could" is underway.

Soon Shira will be romping about with the other members of this cast in comic relief as she plays a six year old who was asked:

"What does your vagina remind you of?"

Response: "A pretty dark peach. Or a diamond I found from a treasure and it's mine."

"What's special about your vagina?"

Response: "Somewhere deep inside it has a really, really smart brain."

While there is much fun and wit in "The Vagina Monologues", each member of the cast will have to dig deep within her own experience as well as the collective to bring what they enjoy, deny, detest and fear into the open at a time when violence against women continues to rise.

We have survived three generations strong--maiden, mother and crone.  And I, as the eldest, know the road traveled here. I think about how it takes generations to create change. It took mothers, daughters and granddaughters 72 years to win the vote for women. No such play could have been presented in my day nor could its title have appeared on a public marquee as it now does in this small town. Feminist art pioneer Judy Chicago cannot yet find a home for her Dinner Party (1979) due to the vaginality of the ceramic imagery. There are people who blanch at the use of the word "vagina "and newspapers that won't print it in ads for the performance.

Yet "The Vagina Monologues" has become a cultural phenomenon presented world-wide and selling out  theatres everywhere as it did in Humboldt County, CA. In New York, 18,000 people attended the Feb. 10 performance at Madison Square Gardens and more than 200 U.S. productions took place on or around Feb. 14 for V-Day/Valentines Day/Vagina Day. A performance by Ensler is set to air on HBO television in spring 2001.

As a woman artist and feminist, I'm deeply grateful to Eve Ensler for what she has brought forth as playwright, performer, activist and fund raiser for groups that work to end violence towards women. The proceeds for the performance I saw were donated to the Humboldt Women for Shelter and the Northcoast Rape Crisis Team.

The synergy of consciousness as each woman performs these monologues and each person hears them seems to me the highest form to which we can lift our art. The Humboldt area director referred to the success of this run as "A Vagina Miracle." It brings a ray of faith to my old feminist heart, perhaps as it spreads itself more and more into our culture - a sacred and sensual collaboration between the sexes can replace the war zone that necessitates the performance of this piece. The women in the cast and in the audience are full to the brink with vitality, sensuality and a love that is just unstoppable.


The Vagina Monologues
Official home of Eve Ensler's hit play.
http://www.vaginamonologues.com

Helen Redman's website:
www.birthingthecrone.com

More Helen Redman

Photo of Helen and Shira by generosity of Olga Gunn

The Vagina
Monologues
March 6 - March 25,
Vogue Theatre
918 Granville Street
Vancouver BC