When Eve Ensler first performed The Vagina Monologues in the 1990s, she was worried she’d be shot.
“Admittedly, she lived was America,” quips Dundee Rep director Irene Macdougall.
“But so many things have changed immensely, so every time you do something like this, you bring the world you’re living in to the piece.”
For Irene, that world in Dundee in 2023, as she prepares her trio of actors – Maureen Carr (Still Game), Joyce Falconer (River City) and NTS ingenue Laura Lovemore – to perform Ensler’s now-infamous monologues for city audiences.
And despite the strides that have been made since the play was written more than 25 years ago, Irene has found the themes of gender-based violence and oppression to be disturbingly prescient.
“You can’t read the news now without seeing how far we still need to go, as far as violence towards women and stuff like that goes,” she observes sadly.
“I think that actually these monologues are still, rather sadly, still needed. And to me, that’s a shock, in a way.
“I’ve no doubt that Eve Ensler thought things would get better. But actually I think as more things get revealed, we’re finding that some things have got better but some things certainly haven’t.”
‘Celebration’ started cascade of confessions
The series of 10 monologues was original written as a ‘celebration’ of the vagina, to shrug off the shame surrounding the body part and what it means.
But, Irene explains, when they were first performed, they began a ripple effect of starting conversations about the hidden desires – and atrocities – associated with the vagina.
“People kept coming up to her and talking to her about abuse and things like that,” says the director, who has been part of the Dundee Rep ensemble for more than 20 years.
“So it became this global phenomenon.”
Indeed, The Vagina Monologues started a movement, ‘V-Day’, which takes place each year on Valentine’s Day and sheds lights on the violence and oppression faced by women around the world.
Each V-Day, a new original monologue is written and performed alongside Ensler’s originals. These are, Irene says, extremely moving, but sometimes harrowing pieces.
In the Dundee Rep production, a selection of the original monologues will be performed, although some that were significantly dated have been replaced with newer ones.
“What’s interesting about the monologues, all of them are either about lack of education about oneself, or about people who have been abused, women who have been raped – and that makes it sound like it’s miserable but it’s not!” insists Irene.
“There’s some very funny monologues. They should make you laugh, but they should also make you think.”
‘She had never talked about it’
Although each of the short monologues takes the listener on “a bit of a journey”, one of Irene’s favourites is the story of an inner journey, rather than an epic tale.
“There’s one beautiful one where an older women had never talked about, as she called it, ‘down there’, her ‘cellar’. And when she did talk about it, it made her feel slightly better.
“That’s not a huge journey,” admits Irene, “but it’s a huge journey for that woman.”
Indeed, so much of what The Vagina Monologues does is not, it seems, monologue at all, but rather start dialogues that might otherwise never be spoken.
“It’s like a whole load of people going out and chatting an sharing stories,” Irene explains. It might make some women feel uncomfortable, but I’m hoping by the end of the evening it doesn’t.”
In fact, she reckons “everyone should see The Vagina Monologues”, as part of the production is about education.
“We have vagina facts too, which I quite enjoy, because some are quite fierce and some are quite funny,” she chuckles.
“For example, it used to considered that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings and was created purely for pleasure.
“But it turns out the reason they think that is because of a study done on cows, and we actually have 10,281 nerve endings or something.
“So it’s interesting that they based the make up of a woman’s clitoris on a study done on cows. You couldn’t make it up, really, could you?”
The Vagina Monologues will be performed at Dundee Rep until April 29. For more information and tickets, visit the theatre’s website.
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