Malibu Stage Co. and more than 20 Pepperdine students stage three performances of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ to raise money for women’s causes.
By Rudabeh Shahbazi
Perspecitves Editor
More than 20 Pepperdine students contributed to Malibu’s first production of the “Vagina Monologues” at Malibu Stage Company last week, raising $6,000 to benefit female victims of violence. Although Pepperdine did not affiliate with the production, all three nights received a standing ovation from a full house, composed largely of Pepperdine students.
“Women make up 51 percent of the population, we bring life into the world,” said producer, and junior, Victoria Russel. “To disrespect a woman’s body is to disrespect life and to disrespect yourself.”
Russel, who believes that violence is the cause of many other evils, said that men cannot be expected to respect a woman’s body until women, first, respect their own bodies. The cast consistently praised her dedication to foster more open discussion to break the silence.
The play, which addresses a serious subject in a humorous way, is filled with fun anecdotes and skits as well as shocking statistics about rape and heart-wrenching narratives about abuse, all based on real people. The brilliant theatrical execution of emotion, wit and drama effectively served “The Vagina Monologue’s” purpose of informing and educating its audience.
“We should no longer be ashamed to embrace who we are as women or tell our stories,” said senior Malia Schneider, who was in the audience. “Millions of women are victims of rape, sex trafficking and domestic violence. If their stories aren’t heard, we can’t mobilize and do anything about it.”
Playwright Eve Ensler composed the monologues because of her own experience with violence. She traveled to 40 countries for five years interviewing female victims of violence to raise awareness about atrocities committed against women and girls, and to celebrate female sexuality and identity. The monologues are both a celebration of women’s sexuality and a condemnation of its violation.
The Obie Award winning play has been translated into more than 25 languages and has been performed all over the world. Ensler has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2002 Amnesty International Media Spotlight Award for Leadership.
Ensler decided to organize the V-Day campaign in response to audience members who constantly approached her with their own stories of violence after seeing the performance. She began donating proceeds to anti-violence organizations, and it soon became a worldwide social activist movement.
In 2003 alone, more than 1,000 V-Day benefit events were performed on college campuses, houses of worship, theaters and community centers to educate millions of people about rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.
These creative events serve to raise money and consciousness while strengthening existing local anti-violence efforts. In it’s first five years, the V-Day movement has raised more than $14 million, with more than $7 million raised in 2002 alone.
The Latino Student Association sold refreshments at the play because part of this year’s proceeds will go in part to women in Juarez, Mexico. Untrained drivers bus them in to the border town of El Paso, Texas, where they work long hours in dangerous conditions and are paid next to nothing. With no security at the bus stops, it is easy for men to prey on women. En route, women are often gang raped, mutilated or disappear all together. El Paso has the highest concentration of convicted sex offenders in the country.
“This is so much more than just a production,” said senior Candace Lopez, who performed in the play. “It’s a war that is overlooked and taken on by everyday people.”
Lopez, who has family in Mexico, was pleased that the play informed audience members about issues such as female genital mutilation.
According to The New York Times, 130 million girls and women worldwide go under the knife, razor or glass shard. In Africa 2 million girls are victims of female genital mutilation.
“In the United States we are lucky because victims of violence have the option to go to authorities and let their voice be heard, but sexual assault in Juarez is accepted,” said senior theater major Christina Dohmen. She said acting in the “Vagina Monologues” is the most amazing project she took on in her four years at Pepperdine.
“The women there know they can be raped at any time and can’t do anything about it.” Dohmen said awareness is the beginning and feels that we should use our power to help the women who have none. She said that through the experience, she learned, “what it means to be a woman in our culture and around the world.”
“God made my vagina. He doesn’t want it to be a derogatory term,” said fellow performer Rozelle Jojo Polido, who initially struggled with the play’s graphic content. She noted that it is possible to be Christian and a feminist at the same time. “You don’t have to agree with everything, but you have to tolerate,” she said.
A part of the proceeds of each production of “Vagina Monologues” also goes to a local anti-violence organization. The Malibu production has chosen three: Sojourn Services for Battered Women, The Gail “Gay” Smith Fund and Break the Cycle.
Russel is a volunteer at Sojourn, which provides services for 5,000 battered women and their children every year free of charge. According to Sojourn, a woman is battered every nine seconds.
Reminiscent of “Necessary Targets,” another of her six plays, Ensler dedicated one monologue to the 20,000-70,000 Bosnian refugees who were raped as part of a systematic tactic in the Yugoslavian War. In the monologue a woman spoke of being protruded with a soldier’s rifle, sticks and a broom.
In the United States 500,000 girls and women are raped each year.
“I didn’t want to have sex with him,” said sophomore Monica Pharaoh in her intensely emotional monologue about a Native American woman and her abusive husband. “I was just a piece of meat, a big hole.”
Pharaoh’s character, whose husband beat her so badly she had to undergo four brain surgeries and spend months relearning how to function properly, found her only solace and revenge in braiding his hair crookedly. It is also revealed through her monologue that her son continued the cycle of spousal abuse that surrounded him in childhood with his own wife.
“Ensler is definitely an inspiration because she doesn’t just stand by and see what’s happening and do nothing,” said Pharaoh. “She faces controversy and does something about the problem.”
Director and Pepperdine senior Mary Guilliams said the subject of domestic violence affects the lives of women of every culture, income, ethnicity and country. One out of three female homicide victims is killed by her intimate partner, according to Sojourn.
“I cannot explain how rewarding and empowering the experience of this production has been to work with a play whose message is as universal as the violence and inequity in counteracts,” Guilliams said.
Submitted February 26, 2004
