Smile If You Love Coochi Snorchers

From a foyer filled with artwork of vaginas, to a stage decorated with red roses (get it?) and red drapes drawn together in a rippled fashion (am I reading too much into this?), the subject of The Vagina Monologues is set out from the start. Vaginas. Apparently women don’t talk about them enough.

Performed in aid of the Lancaster & District Women’s Aid, the monologues were in turns informative and thought provoking, but most relied strongly on humour. A special mention goes to Megan LaMantia-Bishop, both for her My Angry Vagina performance and the, um… exhausting sound effects she provided for another monologue.

With comedy making up so much of the play, it was relatively easy to forget the real reason the monologues were written. Immediately after My Angry Vagina, the humour stopped dead with the devastating My Vagina Was My Village, about a Bosnian victim of war-rape.

There were occasional slips towards the kind of female-supremacist ideology that gives real feminism a bad name, and at times it was obvious that this wasn’t a professional production, but congratulations are due to the cast and crew for putting on a good performance, and for highlighting domestic violence in such an open manner.

One last reminder of how important the issue is: the audience was asked to stand if they’d ever experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Few women remained seated.

That was the review I wrote for Scan, about the Feminist Society's production of The Vagina Monologues. Okay, it wasn't the best bit of work I've ever done. Emilie only gave me a 200 word limit to write it in, so I had to leave out most of what I wanted to put in.

Apparently though, FemSoc weren't impressed, and the reasons I've been given so far are that a) what the hell was I talking about with the scenery, and b) what fucking idiot assigned a review of a feminist play to a male reviewer?

I've diplomatically left a message on the FemSoc message board, asking for feedback on the piece. Could be interesting (i.e. flame war), or maybe the FemSoc have been misrepresented by a generalisation of opinions.

Let's wait and see.