I watched a play after years. And when I did, I watched none other than the famous ‘The Vagina Monologues’. There you go. I not only said the V word but I also watched an hour and a half of narrations related to it. I had always wanted to watch this play and when the students at LSE decided to perform the play on campus, I made sure to buy my ticket at the earliest opportunity. The LSE SU Feminist Society and LSE VM Cast and Crew organized the play, which was held at the Old Theatre on March 12, 2013.  The tickets were very reasonably priced at 5 pounds and were available online and at Houghton Street.

The Vagina Monologues is an epic play by Eve Ensler, which consists of a number of monologues related to the female experience. The play has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. It’s sensitive towards female issues such as rape, love, birth, and celebrates the vagina as a symbol of womanhood. As I read on Wikipedia,  “Each of the monologues deals with an aspect of the feminine experience, touching on matters such as sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the various common names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality”.

The Old Theatre is reasonably big in size and to be honest, I did not expect too many people to be present. After all it was still a gloomy winter evening, and the play was scheduled to start at 8:45 p.m., which would be reason enough to think of giving it a miss. However, I was in for a surprise. Not only did we have to queue to enter the Theatre, it was packed to the fullest. I guess we were not the only ones excited about the play. And the play was simply OUTSTANDING. All the members of the cast were brilliant in their performances. Their uninhibitedness and engaging dialogue delivery was a sheer pleasure to watch as a member of the audience. I can’t find the right words to describe how much I enjoyed each and every monologue. The audience was also extremely engaged in the play and showed their appreciation very generously in the form of claps, whistles and hoots. The sheer talent of the crew shone right through in the form of their expressions to their dialogues and I almost felt like I was the one in conversation with them. I think I am almost drooling in my enthusiastic praise of the performers and should stop writing now but they were really very good in their performance.

I would highly recommend this play to everyone. It’s extremely popular and is performed in various parts of the world. There is absolutely nothing feminist about it and the dialogues are extremely witty which engage you in them and make you laugh at their outrageousness. Leave your prudishness at home and go watch it for an utterly delightful experience. Thank You LSE SU Feminist Society and LSE VM Cast and Crew for a lovely evening 🙂