The Vagina Monologues Are Back!

In week 8, every student is frantically working on an essay, a lab report or an assignment, but somewhere deep in Ramphal or the Humanities department you are pretty much guaranteed to find the cast and directors of The Vagina Monologues 2014 hard at work.

The Warwick Anti Sexism Society production has now become something of a tradition at Warwick, every year raising more money than the last. However, while for most of the audience it is simply a fun evening out, complete with orgasmic moaning on stage, for the cast The Vagina Monologues has been slowly taking over their life for the last term and a half. While the more prudish among you may feel that there would be nothing worse than an evening of listening to a load of students talk about vaginas, there is a lot to be gained from being involved in the production, simply because it raises issues that we never normally discuss. How unusual is it to hear people actually talking about how they think and feel about their vagina?

When Eve Ensler was writing the play, she held ‘Vagina Interviews’ with women all around the world, and you can see in the play just how shocking and liberating this was for the women who participated. One of the cast members, Catherine Lyon said she, “was initially skeptical about how this production could help women, but having performed it and watched it I now know that simply talking about the issues that it raises in a casual way can help us. It’s funny, rude and outrageous but I now have no qualms about discussing all things vagina!”

Productions of The Vagina Monologues happen all over the world every year for V Day, which is a charity that raises money and awareness to stop violence against women. The Warwick production is being held during International Women’s Week in Week 9, in the hope that the spirit of the week can be captured in drama and that The Vagina Monologues keeps people talking about these issues long after Women’s Week is over.

Our cast has discovered over the past few months that these issues are plentiful, ranging from discussions as to why there was so much glitter involved in our Vagina Art Workshop (artwork of vaginas rather than embellishing our own, before you let your imagination run wild…) to how we could possibly identify with the monologue, dealing with rape as a systematic tactic of war during the Bosnian War in the 1990’s. It’s a play that challenges a conception that is rife in our society that sexism is largely over, particularly in the Western World. While the play takes inspiration from women all over the world it sometimes hits on issues very close to home, such as the way we regard pubic hair, or the fraught relationship we have with what the vagina looks, tastes and smells like. This production gives so many different things to people, our cast member Maddie Hindes gives her view on why she got involved, “a fabulous script but it’s also being performed for a fantastic cause! It’s a privilege to be involved.”

The production is being performed during Week 9 on campus in the Copper Rooms, in Coventry at Tin Music and Arts Centre and in Leamington Spa at Bar Ei8ht. Tickets are available from the SU website for a production which, in cast member Emily Dunford’s words, “has the capacity to make you laugh and cry at the same time.”