The first few minutes of the Vagina Monologues, the Obie Award-winning work of playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, are devoted to getting audiences used to hearing the 'V-word' itself. "I bet you're worried," the play begins, and goes from there to break the audience in to the word: repeating it, lingering over it, savoring it, until the shock has worn off and actors and audience alike can hear it without flinching. Only after we get used to saying it, the play tells us, can we actually start to talk about it.

Desensitization will have to wait for the play itself -- this review is too short to do the job -- suffice it to say that the Vagina Monologues is one of the more eye-opening, controversial plays on the global stage today. Composed of interviews with women of various nationalities, the Monologues are a look at what women think about their own nether regions, and are intended to allow both women and men to discuss, without blushing, what the vagina means and why it is so stigmatized in modern cultures around the world. By turns humorous, uncomfortable or downright shocking, the monologues explore just about every aspect of the female genitalia. Around the play itself has grown up a global phenomenon, labeled 'V-Day,' which takes place on Valentine's Day, appropriately, and usually includes anti-domestic violence action as well as performances of the play.

How on earth did a show like this, provocative even for off-Broadway New York, make it's way to Beijing? This isn't the first time for the Monologues in China -- the play was performed in Shanghai and Guangdong last year -- but its showing in Beijing, the cultural capital of China, marks a further attempt to push the issue of women's rights onto the national stage. Actress and feminist Shadow, a Shanghai native who studied theatre in California and Chicago, is the motive force behind China's production of The Vagina Monologues. She first became aware of the show while studying in Chicago, and has enlisted the help of director/producer Sawyer Lee (Li Suyou, known for his work on the album of Tibetan songs, Sister Drum), to add elements of music and dance to the monologues. "I thought, 'let's give this whole city something new? let's start with the vagina!'" She cites as motivation the dismal level of awareness of women's issues in China, as well as the need to give women the permission and power to talk about themselves: "Why is this word taboo? Why can't we say it except to curse? Women should get a chance to talk about our own bodies, at least for one evening."

Director/producer Sawyer Lee also has an agenda. He produces a piece of paper, quickly sketches the characters for the word shizu (ancestry, originators), and points out that shi (beginning) comprises a woman, a symbol meaning private parts, and a 'mouth,' while zu (ancestor) is made up of symbols representing 'worship' and the male genitalia. "Our ancestors understood that the genesis of humanity is the physical body -- specifically the male and female reproductive organs," he says. "But as Chinese culture developed it has become twisted, and these subjects are now a source of shame." He intends the play to open discussion on this transformation, and concurs with Shadow that women's rights will not truly progress until the female body and all its functions are no longer stigmatized as dirty and shameful (though we can't help noting that he still grins slightly with embarrassment when saying the 'V' word).

The Vagina Monologues will be put on at the Today Art Gallery on Valentine's Day, in conjunction with a display of women's art that will run until March 8, China's Women's Day. The executive director of the Today Art Gallery, Shang Fang, thinks that a movement sustained over several weeks will have more impact than a single event, and feels that the play fits in well with the Today Art Gallery's ideal of cutting-edge art that melds artistic and cultural concerns.

The Vagina Monologues has had very little publicity in Chinese-language press, and will be performed in English, with subtitles screened in several languages (including Chinese). It is a quiet entry for a controversial subject, but simply putting on this play in China is a brave attempt -- a frontal assault on the deepest reservations of a culture reluctant to discuss anything 'sensitive' in public. It is likely to meet with plenty of tut-tutting and murmurs of 'inappropriate,' but, as Eve Ensler, Shadow, Sawyer Lee and Shang Fang would be quick to retort, isn't it this disapproval itself which is inappropriate?

Performance Details:

Dates: February 14 (The preview will be on February 13)

Venue: the Today Art Gallery

Tickets Price:  800 -- 500 yuan, including the pre-dinner drinks and snacks, and entrance to the arts exhibition and the after-show party with dinner, drinks and entertainment. (100 RMB for the preview on February 13)

Booking:  62275452, 13521491830

(That's Beijing February 7, 2004)