Review: THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES at Oyster Mill Playhouse

Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, crafted based on 200 interviews with women, premiered in 1996. It is a powerful, inspiring exploration of a wide range of women’s experiences including relationships, sex, body image, menstruation, rape, genital mutilation, and love. It is a play that challenges the notion that these experiences must be kept quiet, hidden, relegated to the deep dark recesses of the mind. It is a play that gives voice to the voiceless and seeks to shed light on issues that women deal with all too often. The Vagina Monologues has expanded and grown, as new spotlight monologues are added each year, focusing on current issues. Oyster Mill Playhouse brings The Vagina Monologues to the stage in a beautiful and moving way.

The music, set, lighting, and staging is crafted to heighten emotion, create movement, and draw the audience’s attention to the women on stage and their words. The cast features Aliza Bardfield, Anne Marino, Chelsea Ranney, Gail Long, Karen McLaughlin, Kristen Borgersen, Margaret Morris, Samantha Speraw, Skylar Gunning, Stephanie Via, Meghana Matur as the narrator, and director Suzanne Thomas (who stepped in for cast member Sarah Pinter).

This cast of courageous women is dynamite. As they move fluidly from monologue to monologue, their versatility as actors is evident. Every single actor pours her whole heart into the performance, bringing energy and passion to the stage. It is a visceral experience that takes the audience on an emotional journey—eliciting feelings of humor, silliness, sadness, grief, rage, and inspiration.

The Vagina Monologues contains adult and graphic content and language and may be triggering for some audience members; however, the team at Oyster Mill Playhouse approaches the material with sensitivity, bringing validation to the experiences of women and giving voice to those experiences. Join the cast and crew of The Vagina Monologues at Oyster Mill Playhouse through March 17th. Visit oystermillplayhouse.com for more information.