V-day performances resonate with empowering voices
Theo Kogod
Issue date: 2/19/10 Section: Features
In the entrance hall outside of Bryan Jr. Auditorium, the familiar red hues of Valentine's Day weekend bloomed. Cards and chocolates were being handed out, celebrating "V-Day 2010." These were not Valentines, however, but cards for a different type of V-day altogether.
The vagina-shaped chocolates and black-type cards represented "The Vagina Monologues," one of two plays performed each year to commemorate the experiences of women, good and bad, beautiful and horrific, originating from all ages, races, and backgrounds.
The other play, "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer," dealt with themes of women's suffering, rape, and domestic abuse.
Performed by an all-Guilford cast and directed by seniors Alyzza Callahan and Carly Mills, these two plays resonate with themes of empowerment and awareness. Profits from both plays benefited Leslie's House, a women's shelter, and Beautifully Brave, an anti-domestic violence campaign founded by junior Megan Snider.
Both plays were envisioned by Eve Ensler, a playwright, feminist, and activist who wrote "The Vagina Monologues" and edited the collection of stories that comprises "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer." The essays include work by Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Anna Deavere Smith. Smith will speak on Feb. 28 at the Greensboro Coliseum as part of Guilford's Bryan Series.
The first and more famous of the two plays, "The Vagina Monologues," draws myriad reactions. Ensler collected interviews and monologues from women of many ages, races, and backgrounds across the country, and their stories range from hilarious to tragic.
One monologue, "Because He Liked to Look At It," performed by senior Alessandra Barbiero, focuses on a woman who used to think of her vagina as being comparable to a couch - a sort of disembodied mass attached to her - until she met a man named Bob, who changed her life (and her relationship with her vagina) forever. Bob, speaking to her passionately in pre-coital moments, told her "I need to see you." To Bob, nothing about the woman or her sexuality was shameful.
The vagina-shaped chocolates and black-type cards represented "The Vagina Monologues," one of two plays performed each year to commemorate the experiences of women, good and bad, beautiful and horrific, originating from all ages, races, and backgrounds.
The other play, "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer," dealt with themes of women's suffering, rape, and domestic abuse.
Performed by an all-Guilford cast and directed by seniors Alyzza Callahan and Carly Mills, these two plays resonate with themes of empowerment and awareness. Profits from both plays benefited Leslie's House, a women's shelter, and Beautifully Brave, an anti-domestic violence campaign founded by junior Megan Snider.
Both plays were envisioned by Eve Ensler, a playwright, feminist, and activist who wrote "The Vagina Monologues" and edited the collection of stories that comprises "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer." The essays include work by Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Anna Deavere Smith. Smith will speak on Feb. 28 at the Greensboro Coliseum as part of Guilford's Bryan Series.
The first and more famous of the two plays, "The Vagina Monologues," draws myriad reactions. Ensler collected interviews and monologues from women of many ages, races, and backgrounds across the country, and their stories range from hilarious to tragic.
One monologue, "Because He Liked to Look At It," performed by senior Alessandra Barbiero, focuses on a woman who used to think of her vagina as being comparable to a couch - a sort of disembodied mass attached to her - until she met a man named Bob, who changed her life (and her relationship with her vagina) forever. Bob, speaking to her passionately in pre-coital moments, told her "I need to see you." To Bob, nothing about the woman or her sexuality was shameful.
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