Monlogues with Megan Doss

The Vagine Monologues provokes questions

To send a man to review an Oberlin performance of The Vagina Monologues is an interesting, if not slightly questionable, choice. The vagina is a very touchy subject, and one that is clearly more easily handled by women (for this and all other sentences, please excuse any puns). Despite all the forces against me, including one of my close woman friends telling me I was scared of female sexuality when I mentioned that if I were to actually see any vaginas on stage I would scream, I went forth and saw the Valentine's Day performance.

Not surprisingly, somewhere along the line while watching the show I got lost. I didn't know what to make of the waves of pink paper-mache that rose from the stage floor and made up the set. I was confused when the characters said things like "If my vagina could speak, it would say 'I'm a vegetarian'." With every moment that passed I was reminded more and more just how far out of my element I was.

It was hard, then, to pass judgement on a play that inherently handicapped me. I knew that I enjoyed the play. I knew that it succeeded in its small, unconventional dramas. But when I thought about the play beyond this, I had many questions.

What follows is an interview with Megan Doss, the show's director. It may not necessarily be critical in the conventional manner of a theater review, but it will be educational.

DT: While I was watching The Vagina Monologues I had so many questions about it, and had so many things I'd rather talk to you about than write a review that I decided to do an interview instead. Do you have any idea why that might be?

MD: I'm not sure. I thought maybe you just really disliked it. I mean, a lot of the monologues in the play women can really relate to. They see those monologues up there on the stage and they're like "Oh yeah, I've had that experience, I know what that's like," or "I know someone that that happened to." Whereas men, it's a little more distant from them. I mean I think they can definitely enjoy the play, but it definitely takes a greater leap for them to identify with anyone in it.

DT: Some of acting in the play was very strong, like sophomore Deb Rosenstein's, but there were a few performances that were considerably weaker. I imagine that must be a result of not having any auditions. I wonder why you made that choice.

MD: I made the choice just because I wanted to see people in the play that aren't the kind of people that you normally see on stage. There's a very small group of people that you see all the time in all the same plays in Oberlin and it's scary for people that aren't part of the theater department and that really haven't done a lot. I mean, they want to be part of this and they want to share a little bit of where they come from, too.

DT: I'd like to ask you about the set. I understand that last year there was no set. But this year there were pink folds and I thought they were worked with very well, sometimes they were sat on and what not, but I mean, considering that it was The Vagina Monologues I couldn't help but feel like I was supposed to be inside a vagina.

MD: Good! That's what I wanted. I had this idea. I wanted a vagina landscape. It just worked with the concept that I was working with for the whole play: that these monologues weren't taking place in actual time or in actual space, right there in front of the audience, that it was more Eve's memory of what had gone on and what she had heard and seen.

DT: On that note, I have to say that I was really surprised to see that Eve Ensler put herself into the play. I was thinking about what I would have done had I directed the play and I think I would have cut that out. Why did you leave that in?

MD: I left it in because I had to. It's basically one of the restrictions of the play that you have to include that introductory "Eve Speech" and that you have to make it clear that it's Eve speaking, so that's why I did it, because they told me I had to.

DT: Would you have liked to cut it?

MD: Possibly. It's a little bit unnecessary.

DT: There are a couple of other things that I would have personally cut. I just want to run them by you to see what you have to say about them. I was kind of blown away by the drama that the play achieved by saying such simple lines such as "he called me a weird, stinky girl." I mean, when that was said the audience was just dead silent and we were all feeling very bad for that character. It was very powerful. And I thought that things like that, that aren't usual dramas, were just all over the place. And that's where the play succeeded. So I was a little disappointed to see Bosnia come into play, because I felt like there was so much in the play already, so many good issues, that we really didn't need it. Plus, when you compare "I was a weird stinky girl" with Bosnia it kind of pales in comparison. What do you think about that?

MD: I actually have to agree. That was one of the more difficult monologues for me because it does kind of come out of nowhere. All the other monologues are really monologues from America and women in America and that kind of comes out of left field. And so it was a little difficult to work with that.

DT: One other thing I wanted to ask you about was the "Choochi Snorcher" monologue. In that monologue we have a celebration of this relationship between a 13-year-old girl and a 24 year-old-woman. Was that a choice you made, to celebrate it?

MD: Yeah. I feel like there is so much in the play that's just horrible experiences and people just being like "Oh, I'm a victim, look at what happened to me." But [in that monologue the woman] really turns that around and says, "yeah, I could be a victim, but look, hey, I turned this experience into something really positive."

DT: Okay. Thanks for doing this.

MD: Sure.