Director Tracey Blake received about 80 applications from women wanting to audition for her latest production at New Plymouth’s Little Theatre.
But when they read the script half of them pulled out.
“It was just too confronting,” Blake said. “It does make you uncomfortable, but that’s what theatre should do. It should make you think. “And like one of the girls said the other night, you can say penis till the cows come home and people aren’t offended, but as soon as you say the word vagina they have a problem saying it.”
, was written in 1996 by American playwright Eve Ensleras, who is now known as V. The play was based on interviews V conducted with 200 women about their views on sex, relationships, and violence against women.
And it being based on real stories was one of the things that appealed to Blake about the play.
“And as a director, I look for plays that challenge people’s thinking. This is truthful theatre, raw, emotional, unapologetically verbatim theatre.” Verbatim theatre was where the voices were based on real life, she said.
“So this is verbatim theatre at its finest.”
Originally written as a one woman play, Blake’s version had three women in the cast, she said.
“But we’ve been able to get permission to have seven, so we’ve split all the monologues up.” And the 4th wall was broken, because the cast spoke to the audience, she said.
“They come on one at a time, there’s only one chair on stage.”
The monologues celebrated the vagina as well as exposed trauma. “Often the actors will go off stage and they are really emotionally wrought because this is real. These are their experiences.”
The age range of the cast was from 34 to 72. “There’s not many plays these days that offer roles for women of all ages too, and it’s something I’m really passionate about. I don’t want to say just because you’re 40, you can’t go on stage anymore.”
One monologue was called They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy, which was about a trans woman. There’s another one called The Angry Vagina, which was incredibly funny but at the same time it was really about pain.
Cast member Sharren Read’s monologue was called The Flood. “It’s is a really interesting one. It comes from an older woman and her experiences. It’s got funny bits in it, but it is incredibly sad because it’s been a life that’s been missed.”
It’s one of two monologues that didn’t use the word vagina, because an older woman wouldn’t, Read said.
One of the biggest challenges as an actor was they were telling a real women’s story.
“You are telling real experiences and the
weight of giving that. The full credit or due that it needs actually sits quite heavily on us.” The other night, one of the ladies in the cast went, “I’m not sure whether New Plymouth is quite ready for this”.
But ready or not the play will open on August 5 and run until August 15.
Taranaki Daily News
