BROADWAY SNAP-SHOT
by Russell Bouthiller
Dateline: 23 November 2004
THE GOOD BODY
Feminist firebrand Eve Ensler is at it again and this time she's taken her gripe to Broadway. Known to audiences around the globe for her one-woman show, THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, a unique tribute to the female genitalia, Ensler takes a new look—or, more precisely, another look—at herself, only to discover she's not entirely satisfied. Okay, she's happy with herself, for the time being. But, it took lots of time and a bit of travel to get there.
Ensler made a name for herself by uttering the forbidden word "vagina" in all its variations. Sitting on stool on a bare stage, she shattered the long-standing taboo against women discussing their private parts. Ensler forced her audience, particularly the fairer sex, to recognize these prohibitions as part of the overall oppression of women and to embrace the beauty of the female genitalia.
Ensler's success with THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES was nothing short of remarkable. Since its debut in 1996, THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES became an Off-Broadway mega-hit and an international sensation, performed around the globe in over thirty languages by any number of famous folk. Ensler earned the ultimate prize for a one-person show: her own HBO Special.
With such an accomplishment as this, it's no wonder Ensler wanted a follow-up and she does so in THE GOOD BODY. This time around, Ensler aims a little higher, her tummy. She confesses that, in her youth, it had been her desire to be the perfect little girl—then, as an adult, to be the perfect little woman. But, according to Ensler, feminine perfection requires a perfectly flat stomach, or so that's what women have been conditioned to believe.
Well, maybe not all women. But, certainly Western women. Or, at least, Western woman of a certain socio-economic niche. Women who have reached a certain level of education. Women who move in a circle of women who share the same goals and values. Women with time and money. Women like Eve Ensler.
In THE GOOD BODY, Ensler assumes the personae of all manner of female, ranging from an African sage to Helen Gurley Brown. We meet a middle-aged wife who had her vagina surgically augmented to accommodate her less-than-accommodating husband and ended up suffering constant pain during sex. Then, there's the teenager who had her breasts removed to keep her stepfather from molesting her. It seems from all these sundry characters we learn there is one common enemy: the mirror.
Directed by Peter Askin, Ensler traipses about Robert Brill's busy set recounting how she has traipsed the globe in search of an answer to her paunch. After Afghanistan, Africa and India, she finally comes to a spiritual revelation. She discovers that her body is good, regardless of its imperfections. (Indeed, compared to many women, Eve Ensler is downright slim.) So, how does this ardent feminist come to terms with all this self-absorbed nonsense in the end? She indulges herself with a large bowl of ice cream. THE GOOD BODY, now at the Booth Theatre.