David Stonehouse Features

In small-town Canada, it's the V-word

Some people just get queasy about Vagina Monologues

By David Stonehouse

When Vanessa King heard she had the go-ahead to stage The Vagina Monologues in the small New Brunswick town of St. Stephen, she found herself momentarily gripped with fear. Sure, the 22-year-old aspiring playwright had asked for this very chance, but now the reality struck home: she had to pull it off.

She knew it wouldn't be easy. She grew up in the community of 5,000 on the border with Maine and knew just how "small town" it could be.

She steeled herself for the potential backlash. After all, this would be the first time in the town's history anyone put on a play about -- well, you know -- the V-word.

And that is exactly what it has become. Some local shops refused to let her put up posters in their windows unless she dropped the word vagina. When she first approached a local radio station, the folks there were adamant: no one would be uttering that word on the air.

"It's one of those hush-hush words," she says. "How can you advertise a play called The Vagina Monologues without using the word vagina?"

So King has had to become somewhat oblique in her promotions, beckoning the folks in St. Stephen and the surrounding county to a "V-Day" production this Saturday at the area high school.

She can only hope enough people make the connection to Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues, the play based on interviews with 200 women about their intimate anatomy.

"I don't like it. I shouldn't have to censor myself because it is not a bad word. I could think of a thousand more words that would be more offensive than vagina," King says.

"I really hope I don't become this person in the community who is considered a radical. I have that fear. Because it is a small town you are afraid that stigma might get attached to you. It's a risk."

She is not alone. Organizers in other small communities across the country are finding themselves confronted with the same vagina phobia. Over the next month, there will be more than 800 amateur and student productions of the monologues, all fundraisers dedicated to raising awareness of violence against women and money to combat it.

While professional big-city productions of The Vagina Monologues -- often attracting star-studded lineups -- have attracted some share of notoriety because of the star power and subject matter, it is the small-town efforts that have to struggle hard against well-entrenched taboos.

Ticket sales are sluggish in some towns, and some folks are aghast. Women who signed up to take part have been gripped with a different kind of stage fright, backing out after reading the script for fear of what others would think of them for talking of such things in public.

"Why is all this so taboo?" wonders Kera McHugh, a thirtysomething Web designer living in Gibson's B.C., who is battling a backlash against her effort to present the Monologues in nearby Sechelt. "The vagina is a beautiful, essential, life-giving attribute that is unique to the female gender. It shouldn't be closed away and labeled 'bad' by anyone -- least of all women."

Some folks in the largely fishing and logging communities of the Sunshine Coast are refusing to allow her to put up posters with an artist's stylistic impression of a vagina. And there are even women who are against allowing men to help out or even attend.

"Lots of people don't want to talk about it," says JoAnne Brooks, who is helping with a staging in Pembroke slated for March 8, International Women's Day. "They just call it, 'That production.' "

Brooks, who works at the Renfrew County sexual assault centre in Eganville, says some women initially eager to be a part of the cast have dropped out after reading the script because they worry about what their friends, colleagues and neighbours will think.

"It's that whole fear thing about being out about women's sexuality," she says. "It's almost like you are being outed in some kind of way -- in the way that women's sexuality is not normally discussed. And if it is, it is often done in a derogatory way."

On the other hand, she says, the 150 tickets for the event have sold out and there are women who are eager to "rattle the conservative reins" by stepping into the spotlight and reading from the Monologues.

Not everyone is having a hard go of it. Producers in Perth have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction they are getting. Demand for tickets for tomorrow night's show meant they had to move from the 200-seat Studio Theatre to the 650-seat auditorium at the local high school.

"I had expected some negative reaction, but have had virtually none," says Wendy Laut, who owns a small boutique in Perth and is in the cast as well as producing and directing the show.

"I know some of the actresses are a little nervous about appearing in front of some of their neighbours, relatives and business associates. But all are very independent, confident women who are rising admirably to the occasion."

She credits the "flourishing artistic and cultural community" in town for the warmer-than-expected reception.

Ruth Craig, a 73-year-old widow and grandmother who is among the Perth cast, says she has not heard much of a negative reaction -- from folks in town, that is.

"I've got friends in Ottawa who are quite shocked that I am involved," she says.