Eve Ensler created a sensation and a valuable service with her Vagina Monologues which started as a performance piece, turned into an influential script and morphed into a movement that continues today. Her most recent work combines her struggle with cancer and her efforts on behalf of women the Congo.
The problem with the show is that while the two events happened at the same time in her life she never convincingly combines them in as a theme in the script. There is plenty of pain throughout the play and they are baldly presented without framing or insight. It leaves you exhausted and burned at the end, without context or leavening at all. There are certainly instances in the theater where we examine pain and suffering deeply and personally. This felt like a listing of painful incidents without purpose, each trying to top the other.
Every great artist has hits and misses. This qualifies as the latter.
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TOMORROW: It’s about time!
