‘The Vagina Monologues’

State Hornet Staff

Vagina: The word said most during Sacramento State’s 11th performance of the Vagina Monologues.

 The Vagina Monologues is an episodic show based on the book, “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler and is composed of actual stories collected from over 200 women.

 The piece is meant to celebrate the female body and empower women to feel comfortable and proud in their own skin.

 “This is not so much a play, but an act of activism,” said violence and sexual assault advocate for Student Health and Counseling Services Jessica Heskin. “This is counter-culture activism by giving a voice to women who have lived through atrocious violence and who don’t have a voice of their own.”

 A student made a comment to professor Mary Robinson of the theater and dance department about the Vagina Monologues, which she said really resonated with her.

 “She said, ‘I never imagined it would be O.K. to be so comfortable with our bodies,’” Robinson said.

 Initially, some students feel uncomfortable.

 “I had a student tell me that she was a little bit uncomfortable at the beginning of the performance,” Robinson said. “But once it really got going she was able to relax and take in the message.”

 Heskin said even in today’s world, women are objectified and many are made to believe talking openly about their vaginas and sex lives is wrong.

 “My favorite part as an experience was being on stage,” Robinson said. “As for the message, it’s so much about knowing we can talk about things we’ve been made to believe we don’t have permission to talk about. Like there’s this aspect to us that somehow it’s shameful, and this piece changes that.”

 While a lot went into the production of this show, it was not run like a typical theater performance. Rehearsals were minimal and all the actresses were given their individual monologues to practice on their own time.

 “This show is not meant to be done by professional actors and it is not intended just for people with acting backgrounds,” Heskin said. “When the focus is too much on the performing aspect, it takes away from student involvement but also taking away from the fact that we are representing women’s stories. These aren’t actresses – these are actual women’s stories. Ensler wanted to make sure the play kept its grassroots origins.”

 Robinson said there wasn’t a long rehearsal period or a lot of formal direction before the performance.

 “We each met individually with the director one time and then we had a run through, dress rehearsal and then performance,” Robinson said. “There was a lot of individual work that made the monologues sound more natural.”

 The Vagina Monologues was put on by UNIQUE and cosponsored by Active Minds and the Sac State Student Health and Counseling Services. Proceeds benefit The Share Institute and My Sister’s House – a non-profit organization aimed to help women who are victims of domestic abuse.

 “This performance is great to have on campus because it raises awareness to social issues women still face today,” said junior speech pathology major Sibley Silcox. “It’s a really cool performance that can empower women in different ways like bringing a voice and allowing a safe platform for women to speak out and feel comfortable talking about their vaginas.”

 Some students wanted to go to the performance, but Sac State only offers one show time on one night.

 “I was disappointed there wasn’t another time available to see it on campus,” said freshman criminal justice major Andrea Gutierrez. “I think they could find a way to add at least one more performance time so more people could attend.”

 The reason Sac State can only host one night of the Vagina Monologues. V-Day is a national organization, which allows college campuses to use the play for up to three performances and not pay royalties.

 “We used to do all three performances in the theater,” Heskin said. “When we no longer had access to the theater, due to conflicting play schedules, we had to move to the Redwood Room in the University Union.”

 With the size of the audience this performance began to attract – the Redwood Room was no longer big enough.

 “After partnering with UNIQUE last year,” Heskin said. “We did the performance in the ballroom where we can seat up to 1,300 people versus only 300 in the Redwood room.”

 UNIQUE only has the ballroom one night a week, so in order to do the performance three times, the Student Health and Counseling Center would have to pay for the other two days, taking more money out of the proceeds that could be donated.

 “A lot of people on campus don’t understand that when you do a play on campus, unless it’s something like Shakespeare, you have to royalties for using that script,” Heskin said. “The caveat is we can only have three performances and the money raised goes towards a women’s issues organization.”

 To do this performance on a college campus, it has to be predominantly student-run.

 “There’s no exact guidelines for that specific aspect,” Heskin said. “But you can’t have an all-staff or professional cast. You have to have open casting calls and involve everybody no matter what.”

 Another thing you might notice about this show is the lack of men on stage.

 “You will never see a male on stage,” Heskin said. “You may have a male director or stage manager, but no male actors. We went back and forth on whether it was okay to have a male puppeteer controlling the big vagina puppet, but we decided it was part of set design because it was not a speaking part.”

 Although the Vagina Monologues is a big hit on campus now, the student reaction was not always so positive.

 “Back in 2002 it was a very difficult time politically to put on this show,” Heskin said. “There were complaints to former Sac State President Gerth’s office. There were people who defaced our posters and it was just not an easy thing to do at that time. To the university’s credit, they didn’t shut us down and Gerth supported us all the way.”

 The popularity of the performance on campus has skyrocketed and tickets sell out every year.

 “This show is something everyone can enjoy,” said senior health education major and stage manager for the Vagina Monologues Lara Falkenstein. “Watching the girls do the monologues is incredible. It’s so powerful for women to know their story will live on and be retold for women across the world.”