(Oliver Laughland’s interview appeared in the Guardian, 1/16.)
The playwright Eve Ensler has dismissed claims made by a university theatre group that her famed play the Vagina Monologues is “inherently reductionist and exclusive”, insisting the play is just as relevant now as when it was first written.
Students at the all-female liberal arts school Mount Holyoke College have decided to break with a decade-long tradition of putting the play on at Valentine’s Day, arguing that it does not do enough to include transgender people and people of colour.
“At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman,” an email circulated circulated among members of the college’s Project Theatre group states.
The note, obtained by the student news website Campus Reform, continues: “Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.”