Also this issue:

Cloaking Devices
Susan Fenton and Anne Seidman create revealing work that plays hard to get.
-Robin Rice

Paradise Redefined
-Susan Hagen

First Friday Focus

Politics Unusual
-A.D. Amorosi

Becoming: Shakespeare
-Debra Auspitz

The Outside In
-Sam Adams

The (Un)Beat(en) Generation
-Paul Burress

All-Ages Art
-Sam Adams

October 3- 9, 2002

artpicks

Anatomy Lessons

by Meredith Broussard

Vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina.

Whew.

When discussing Eve Ensler's hit play The Vagina Monologues, it's important to dispel any discomfort about hearing the word "vagina." And by the time you exit this uproariously funny, occasionally moving performance, the word "vagina" will sound just as ordinary as "latte" or "taxi."

The play is precisely what the title suggests. Three women sit on stage and deliver monologues about vaginas. The monologues are not their own, however; Ensler collected vagina stories from a dizzying array of women around the world--young, old, rich, poor, black, white, purple and what have you. Top Gun babe Kelly McGillis heads the lineup during the show's week-long run at the Forrest Theatre, also featuring Starla Benford and Kristen Lee Kelly.

It is a terrific challenge for the three actors to portray such a wide variety of characters, especially without props or costumes. Usually, the results are magnificent. To give you an idea of the popularity of the show, consider this: Monologues presently has an indefinite run in New York and Chicago, and two touring companies are simultaneously crisscrossing the United States.

A Vagina Monologues audience is much like the audience for Sing-a-long Grease. It's almost entirely women, many of whom are intimately familiar with the material being presented. The handful of men look awfully baffled at first, but eventually laugh their heads off with everyone else. If you own a vagina, or if someone close to you does, by all means check out this show.

The Vagina Monologues, Oct. 8-13, Forrest Theatre, 1114 Walnut St., 215-923-1515.