Catalyst for Dialogue Is Lost

While the raucous musical comedy “The Full Monty” continues to dance over the surface of male sexuality at the 1,600-seat Ahmanson Theatre, “The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler’s probing social commentary on the mystique surrounding the female genitalia, closed Sunday at the 280-seat Coronet Theatre on La Cienega.

To even a casual observer it may come as no surprise that the vagina would end its run without fanfare in a small, dark theater, while the penis is downtown, on the big stage, starring in its own Broadway show.

When it comes to recognition on the L.A. theater scene, size matters. But there’s an argument to be made that, even though it inhabited a comparatively small venue, with the closing of “Monologues,” Los Angeles loses a still-vital catalyst for dialogue. It’s a show with a remarkable ability to change and grow with each different cast--and one that reveals more about sexual shame, self-discovery and liberation than the winking, fun-loving “Full Monty” ever will, even though the cast of “Monologues” never literally drops its pants.

Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” began as a one-woman show starring Ensler, later developing into a reader’s theater piece for three women, with the performers sitting onstage on stools, usually with minimal set decoration.

For the Los Angeles production, said one of the producers, James B. Freydberg, casting always included one younger woman, one older woman and a “woman of color,” although there were no set rules as to which woman would perform which monologue in each cast.

The piece was inspired by Ensler’s own history as a survivor of childhood incest and abuse. The monologues, some hilarious, some somber, are based on interviews with 200 women, and include frank speeches such as “My Angry Vagina,” “Because He Liked to Look at It” and “The Flood.”

Although it started small, “Vagina Monologues,” easy to move and cheap to produce, has become a theatrical franchise, a veritable McVagina. It has toured the world and drawn a wide range of celebrities to the stage (even Erin Brockovich, in Toronto) since it took the New York theater world by surprise at a SoHo theater in 1996. In 1998, Ensler and other organizers created an annual “V-Day,” observed every Valentine’s Day to raise money to end violence toward women. In February, a version of “Monologues” was presented on HBO. Productions continue in New York and other cities.

“Monologues” also had a long and healthy life in L.A.: The show opened at Beverly Hills’ 382-seat Canon Theatre in October 2000, with audiences clamoring for tickets to see the all-star cast of Julianna Margulies, Rosie Perez and Julie Kavner. The production lasted there until December of last year. After multiple casts, the show had started to run out of big Hollywood stars to revolve through the roles, and attendance began to drop.

In February, the producers decided to take “Monologues” to the smaller Coronet Theatre in hopes of relieving some of the financial pressure to fill seats.

Veteran producer Freydberg , Tony Award winner for “Fool Moon” and producer of numerous critically acclaimed shows on both coasts, believed the move would also allow the opportunity to take some casting risks, introducing talented actresses whose names might not be known from movies or TV. That list included the warm and funny Rose Abdoo, a veteran of Chicago’s Second City Theatre, who appeared in the final cast with former MTV VJ Julie Brown and the glamorous Tia Carrere.

It didn’t work.

“My friends and I used to open the paper and say: ‘Who’s doing it this time?’” a rueful Abdoo, who also performed in a Chicago production of “Monologues,” said in a phone conversation a few days before the show closed. “Now, I think they open the paper and say: “Who is Rose Abdoo?’ They want to say: ‘Wow, it’s that girl I used to love on ‘Dallas’ or ‘One Day at a Time.’”

Freydberg blames the situation on competition from the recent HBO “Monologues,” as well as Los Angeles’ obsession with movie and TV stars. “New York is a theater town; after a while, it didn’t matter at all who was in it,” he said. (This observation must be taken with a grain of salt; although I {heart} NY as much as anyone, tell me no Manhattanite ever goes to see Jane Leeves in “Cabaret” just because she’s on “Frasier.”)

Probably more realistic, and certainly less irritating, is Freydberg’s other observation about why a show can run for years in New York and not in L.A.: “In New York, your first three to six months, or even nine months, off-Broadway is the New York audience, and then it switches to the tourist audience that is there to see theater,” he said. “People don’t come to L.A. for three days and decide they’re going to see three shows. They don’t even decide to see one.”

Clearly, “Vagina Monologues” wasn’t drummed out of town in L.A. and enjoyed a longer run here than any show in recent memory, enjoying an audience that Freydberg reported to be about 65% women when it played at the Canon. Abdoo notes that, in Chicago, the male audience increased when a local critic observed that a performance of “Monologues” was a great place to meet women.

“After doing this show for a week or so, you begin to think differently about being a woman; you begin to feel like we must be very powerful people if [men believe] we need to be anchored down and held in check,” said Phylicia Rashad, a member of the second “Monologues” cast at the Canon.

“I had a conversation with a young man in my family who saw the show, and I asked him: ‘Do you think men are afraid of women?’ His answer was most interesting,” she said. “He said: ‘Men are intimidated by women.’ I said: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘A man plays games with a woman all the time, but once a woman figures out the game, it no longer is a game.’ I almost ran the car off the road, he was speaking so honestly.”

And certainly there’s some truth in this observation by a Chicago theatergoer about why a “Vagina Monologues” is needed more than a “Penis Monologues.” (Although that title has been used for a few short-lived, jokey satires in various cities, as well as a “Saturday Night Live” skit, there’s really never been a serious attempt to create a male version of Ensler’s confessional show.) Said the fan: “Every show is ‘The Penis Monologues’; every movie is ‘The Penis Monologues.’”

Producer Freydberg agrees. “I don’t think that men are put down by that part of their body as women are; these monologues are about women finding equality,” he said. “I don’t think a ‘Penis Monologues’ would have any viability; men are not afraid to talk about that.”

Or are they?

Freydberg spoke of his first reaction to “Monologues,” years ago in New York. “I got it all. I knew exactly what to do with it,” he said excitedly--then added, after a long pause: “But then, I had a whole different life experience that was similar to what some of the women go through in the show, so I basically understood what this was.” How so? He didn’t want to talk about it. “No. Not for the newspaper. No.”

I thought about what Freydberg didn’t tell me while watching the 10 o’clock news the same day of our conversation. Two men, flanked by their lawyers, were talking about something that happened years ago with their priests, hesitantly, but in words as harsh and graphic as anything in “Vagina Monologues.” Both spoke until they started weeping--not freely, but in those raspy, inexperienced guy sobs that sound like the opening of a rusted hinge.

Which makes one wonder if the only reason there hasn’t been a male answer to “The Vagina Monologues” is not because the penis has already been spoken for, but because men remain, in some ways, more afraid to speak than women. At least in the theater, men don’t have their Eve Ensler yet, haven’t really offered their monologue--and despite all that singing, dancing and stripping at the Ahmanson, have yet to reveal the full monty.