The opening night of The Vagina Monologues took place on Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Frostburg State University’s Pealer Recital Hall. Directed by Latia Stokes, Monologues was a powerful performance. The event lasted about two hours with a fifteen minute intermission between. A percentage of the proceeds will be donated to the Family Crisis Resource Center, the Dove Center and the Women and Girls of Haiti foundation.
Each monologue consisted of a performer advancing to the middle of the spotlight while the rest of the performers sat behind her in a semi- circle. It was presented so that each actress appeared to be telling a story to their girlfriends as the other performers would display their reactions to each monologue. A variety of issues were brought to light and spoken about in this benefit show. Every act had a different story that focused on an overall taboo subject for women and men alike, vaginas.
The event began as the stage turned pitch black and the performers kicked off the show with a dance routine to “Run the World” by Beyoncé. As the show went on, it consisted of several different monologues, from Kristin Demer’s performance of “Because He Liked to Look at It” to Sierra Messam’s monologues, “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could,” each act had a different story to share. The most enjoyable one by the audience was “My Angry Vagina” by DeAndria Norman and Lis Becraft. The audience laughed about several statements they made in this monologue like how they hate having tampons shoved up inside them.
During the second half of the performance, actress Monica Lockhart passed out during her monologue, “The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy.” She was in the middle of acting out her monologue and just fell to the ground. The audience all thought it was part of her performance at first, all the other performers stayed in place. Then one performer crawled over and shook her and that’s when the audience started to look around and we were all thinking the same thing “Is this part of the performance or what?” The other performers then started to circle around her and then Simone Morrison, performer of “Reclaiming Cunt,” said to the crowd, “Can someone find Nicole?”
Eventually, the audience started exchanging glances with one another. One woman even exclaimed, “Oh my God, is she alright?” Then, Nicole finally came to the aid of the unconscious performer with a bottle of water in hand. Lockhart regained consciousness and sat up to face the audience. She wearily sipped her water as the audience began to cheer at the sight of her recovery. Although Lockhart was able to muster the strength to stand to her feet, she did not want to continue with her monologue. The performers, along with the audience, started clapping louder until she decided to go on.
Using a chair as a prop, she looked out into the audience and simply said, “Hi” as she laughed and carried on. The audience laughed along with her. From that point, she picked right back up on her monologue as if nothing had happened.
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