The genital monologues: A gamble that paid off

AT the beginning of this year Chipo Mawarire came to me asking if Intwasa Arts Festival could produce The Vagina Monologues for the 2019 edition. My first reaction was an emphatic No. In fact, I remember saying no more than three times after her proposal. I knew the play. I had read it, more than once. A few years ago, Styx Mhlanga had brought me a hard copy of the play as a gift from one of his Broadway visits. I had also seen the play at Hifa years back and knew the trouble it had caused and was bound to cause. I didn’t want Intwasa to go through what Hifa had gone through trying to clear the play with the Censorship Board and all.

Of course, the surprise was her response to refusal to produce the play. She had smiled in my face and responded, “I knew you would say NO. It will be too much a challenge for you anyway. You’re afraid of pushing boundaries.” I felt challenged. I could see challenge in her eyes. She was daring me with her eyes. And so, without thinking twice I swallowed the bait and took the challenge.

“Find me the resources to produce the play and I’ll do the rest,” she declared. Lucky enough OSISA and Hivos were able to buy into the idea of giving women a platform to amplify their voices. And it is exactly what this play is about — the amplification of women’s voices. It makes some “naughty” noise about women emancipation and empowerment.

So excited was she that she ran around and quickly put her cast and crew together. Four brilliant and intelligent young women made the grade and were given the task of bringing the project to life. The brilliant actresses are Sithabile Ndubiwa, Agness Ncube, Musawenkosi Sibanda and the multi-talented and award-winning Lady Tshawe.

Memory Kumbota, a veteran and award-winning theatre director led the creative process and guided this small group to come up with what has been the most talked about local theatre piece this year.

One member of the audience described the play as the “best theatrical piece seen this year.” Another said watching the play was the “most shocking and most liberating experience” for them.

Travelling with the play during the 16 Days of

Activism was eye opening. It was quite an experience seeing the usual lethargic and conservative local audiences go through a series of telling emotions. Anticipation. Shock. Anxiety. Anger. And finally, being able to relax and laugh at some of the issues and scenarios presented by the play described by international critics as a “whirlwind tour of the forbidden zone.”

In Gwanda, one young woman was brave enough to bring her mother along to the performance.

“My mother doesn’t know what she is here to watch. It’s a surprise for her,” the young lady said as we waited for the play to start. There was no electricity so the crew was busy setting up a backup generator. And sure enough when the play started the young woman’s mother couldn’t believe what she was hearing. To say she was shocked would be an understatement. She sat, tense, and yet eyes glued to the stage. She was in the deep end, you could see she was finding it hard to breathe or even look at her daughter. In contrast, the daughter was relaxed and enjoying every moment. Half way through the performance the old woman began to relax, you could see her breathe easily, then she started to laugh too.

After the performance the young lady said she was glad to have brought her mother.

In Masvingo one woman brought her husband and after the performance he couldn’t stop talking about how liberating the play was. Inspired by the play he went on to tell a story about sexual abuse he had witnessed in a nearby village.

In Bulawayo I was able to discuss freely with women who, on a normal day, would have found it strange to talk to me about sexual matters.

The play is designed to naturally shock the audience. It revels in the audience’s discomfort in openly discussing matters sexual. The play screams to the actresses to get the audiences out of their comfort zone and give them something to talk about afterwards. Staying in comfort zones is dangerous.

We tend to relax and turn a blind eye to a lot of bad things in the name of comfort. First the play seeks to demystify the vagina. No female body part can properly represent a woman better than the vagina.

So, the vagina is symbolic. It represents a woman. Women in their diversity, in their different bodies, different shapes, different complexions, different intellect, different tastes, different desires and different stories and experiences.

The play talks about sex, consensual and otherwise. It talks about self-discovery and self-love. It discusses rape, vaginal mutilation, violence against women, and violation of their bodies, body shaming, pain and the joys of giving birth. This is a great piece of theatre that deliberately chooses the use of a delicate and rather too intimate female body part to educate women about themselves and their bodies, and men about women. In the play the word vagina is mentioned more than one can care to remember but the images that most audiences take home are about diversity, abuse, pain, beauty and the joys of womanhood.

The Vagina Monologues is not a simple story about sex and more sex but a complex, and very intelligent story about women and women empowerment. It is a story written 20 good years ago but still has themes that have remained urgent and very topical up to today.