Tonight I experienced a new, unique production by Eve Ensler at the Signature Theater called Emotional Creature. I went in knowing very little other than the fact than it was about teen-age girls. Since I have a tween at home, I thought the context would be relevant to my own life and would expose me too much of what is yet to come. And it is Eve Ensler, how could I ever go wrong?
When I saw Ensler’s Vagina Monologues many years ago, I remember being riveted. The script was raw, real, compelling and familiar. For two hours, I heard about what it’s really like to be a woman today and I related and commiserated with every word.
And it happened again. Only this time, I related to the future I feel my daughter is about to experience. The subtitle of Emotional Creature, Eve Ensler’s girl-power monologues-plus-songs and dancing collage, is The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. The show deals with a number of global themes that are felt by six girls: body image, popularity, being pretty, sex, homosexuality, anorexia, sex slavery, rape, pregnancy, female circumcision. Each girl is growing up and dealing with universal feelings, but depending on where they live (Bulgaria, Congo, Beirut) they have different ways of coping. If they are not experiencing, they are feeling.
The first half of the play is about some of the issues that Americans face. They’re constantly on their cell phone, snapping photos on Instagram, putting technology front and center. The characters gather in front of lockers and discuss being ignored in the lunchroom and not being popular. One girl, played by Emily Grossland, kisses a girl and finds herself ignored by her the following day. And suddenly it gets quite serious and leaves our comfort zone. We hear the tale of a Bulgarian girl (played by Molly Carden) who is being trafficked by the police and a young girl who was raped and sex slaved from the age of 12 (played by Joaquina Kalukango). A girl from Tehran (Sade Namei) tells a story about how her nose job transformed her from being “funny” to “pretty,” and a Chinese factory worker (Olivia Oguma) assembles Barbie heads and has some serious thoughts on the dolls she produces every day which is very funny. Ashley Bryant is the queen of the short skirt and declares “My short skirt is not begging for it. My short skirt has nothing to do with you. It’s my vagina’s cunt-ry.”
There are some pretty dramatic shifts from laughter to tears but Ensler levels it out with profound language, spelling out exactly how this new generation of young women feels. They are stronger but they have emotion:
Everything is intense to me.
I think marriage is really old.
Would you mind using a condom, please?
Why are boys all over her?
Don’t tell me not to cry.
When all is said and done, the play has a very important message: that the teenage years for girls are VERY important and play a big role in shaping the future and that it’s still a patriarchal world and girls/women have to work extra hard to get ahead. The ensemble cast works hard to tell these important stories and they seem to have their heart and soul tied into their work in this production, although I can’t blame them. The words they are speaking and singing are important…and powerful.
Apparently, feminist author Ensler traveled the world to find these important stories and she magically created a way to tell their stories through music, dance and dramatic monologues. And it worked for me. Emotional Creature is about using and sharing our voices and I’m glad that she keeps back for more.
As for my daughter, I have some interesting years ahead. When I came home from the show and went to visit her in bed, I mentioned the show and how it puts young girls front and center. And she surmised that it means that one day a woman will be President. Why not? According to this show, we can be anything we want but it’s still not as easy as it should be.
Emotional Creature is performed at The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street). Order tickets here.
Disclosure: I was given complimentary tickets but all opinions are my own.
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