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Usher Nonsense, Vol. 2, No. 12
THE GOOD BODY, by Eve Ensler, Directed by Peter Asking (Trumbo)
With Eve Ensler
Booth Theatre, Opening November 15, 2004
Sets - ROBERT BRILL (Reckless), Costumes - SUSAN HILFERTY, Lights - KEVIN
ADAMS, Video - WENDALL K. HARRINGTON
I saw Vagina Monologues out in L.A., with a mediocre cast, and I really liked it. So I was
prepared to like this.
I didn't. This seems to be a particularly self-indulgent piece that focuses on Ensler's obsession
with her belly. It's not big, her belly, and neither is this conceit. Sure, sure, Ensler does give us a
tour around the world and tells the stories of what women do to their bodies in order to conform.
They break their legs to shorten themselves. They tighten their vaginas, bringing delight to their
partners and pain to themselves. They botox the be-jesus out of themselves. Etc., etc., etc. It is
horrible. It is humiliating.
But Ensler always brings it back to her body, and her obsession, and her inner monologue which
never changes in spite of interviewing the women she portrays. She plays this like a stand-up
comedian, and, in comparison to the women's stories she tells, this is just plain trivial. The final
insult is the story of Ensler eating ice cream with the women in Afghanistan (you remember - that
country where we brought Democracy to the people). Seems as though ice cream eating is
forbidden to women in Afghanistan. So, at the risk of their lives, they have clandestine meetings
where women hold sheets up like walls while their friends sit behind them and eat the forbidden
sweet .
As if to equate her own "belly struggle" with the lives of these women, who live in servitude that is
beyond comprehension, Ensler tells us that when she was in Afghanistan with these women she
ate the ice cream. She ate and ate and ate. Without one thought to that little belly of hers. She
sent out love and took in ice cream.
Sounds like a diet plan to me.
©2005 by Tulis McCall