Eve Ensler should know better. And she’s the first one to tell you.
Ensler is the playwright who turned her interviews with women around the globe into “The Vagina Monologues,” her now-iconic exploration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery.
Yes, the avowed lifelong radical feminist whose play spawned the worldwide “V-Day Movement” that has raised more than $50 million to end violence against women . . . hates her own tummy.
And while she was empowering millions of women, she was secretly obsessing and battling with her body image.
This seeming hypocrisy, this seeming contradiction, this seeming betrayal of feminism, speaks head-on to just how damaging our uniquely American notions of female beauty have become. Or maybe always were.
Ensler delivers her honest confession in the 2006 play “The Good Body,” using it as a launching point to explore how it all came to this. And why here in the U.S. — where women have attained a level of equality higher than in other parts of the world — we still have the narrowest definition of female beauty.
Like “The Vagina Monologues,” this play is culled from dozens of interviews Ensler conducted around the world. But this is a much more personal journey, because Ensler herself is the focal point.
She revealed her father’s alleged sexual abuse of her in “The Vagina Monologues,” and that very much informs the central question in “The Good Body”: What does it mean to be “good?” To be a good girl, or to have a good body?
The play is structured as a dialogue between Megan Van De Hey, as Ensler, and her audience. This is the fourth installment in The Avenue Theater’s annual “January for Women” series, and by far the most substantive and useful for audiences of both genders.
It’s a friendly and committed performance by Van De Hey, who has an ability to connect with an audience of 100 as if she’s having coffee with each one alone. She’s our party host, best friend and life coach.
She is ably backed by Emily Paton Davies and Lisa Rosenhagen, who play all the women Ensler encounters from Italy to Africa to Afghanistan, where it’s illegal for a woman to eat ice cream.
We meet 82-year-old Cosmo founder Helen Gurley Brown, who did more to foster the impossible ideal of the dream woman than anyone. A trophy actress who fears her surgeon husband will fall out of love with her when he runs out of body parts to improve. A middle-aged Jewish woman who undergoes laser surgery to please her husband in bed.
As fine as these actors are, director Edith Weiss missed an opportunity to present a wider range of body shapes and skin colors on the stage to better reflect the array of women in Ensler’s play. Having white women play a black teen at a fat camp or a Puerto Rican woman with a healthy appreciation for her “big butt” borders on caricature.
And while certain scenes are complemented with slide photographs, it’s a device that could be used to much greater dramatic effect.
The narrative in itself doesn’t make for a good play, necessarily. It’s often very funny and delivers meaningful epiphanies, but many of the topics it tackles are either obvious or tangential. We know by now that women’s magazine covers glorify an unattainable and therefore damaging standard of beauty. We know that bad food habits often can be traced back to issues from childhood. At times, the play teeters on the edge of rah-rah, self-help theater.
But Van de Hey, ever the pro, always brings it back to a personal conversation that asks a poignant, loaded question: Why do so many American women, of all sizes and ages, look into a mirror and see flaws instead of beauty?
In Africa, Ensler met a woman who put it to her so simply: Do you decide that one tree is not beautiful because it doesn’t look just like another? Of course not. You see the evident beauty in both trees.
So why are we not as benevolent in our judgment of ourselves as we are of trees?
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Good Body” *** (out of four stars)
Body-image pep talk. Presented by The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave. Written by Eve Ensler. Directed by Edith Weiss. Through Feb. 26. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Feb. 20. $25. 303-321-5925,
Weekend best bet: “A Soldier’s Play”
A black sergeant cries out in the night: “They still hate you,” then is shot twice and falls dead. So starts Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer-winning “A Soldier’s Play,” set in 1944 at Fort Neal, a segregated army camp in Louisiana. “A Soldier’s Play” is more than a murder investigation; it’s a tough, incisive exploration of racial tensions and ambiguities not only between blacks and whites but among blacks themselves. Through Feb. 27. Presented by the Afterthought Theatre Company at the Crossroads Theater at Five Points, 2590 Washington St. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Sundays; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. $32.50. 720-365-7754 or
Next week’s best bet: “Spring Awakening”
Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 15-16 only: Duncan Sheik (“Barely Breathing”) and Steven Sater’s a revolutionary rock musical re-creates a banned 1891 German tragedy about teenagers discovering the often frightening passions and urges of adolescence in the absolute absence of real information from the adults around them. Though set a century ago, the story presents contemporary teens navigating their way through teenage self-discovery and its potentially tragic consequences. This fusion of morality, sexuality and rock ‘n roll has made “Spring Awakening” one of the most celebrated new musicals in years.$25-$90.
At the Buell Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 303-893-4100 or . Read John Moore’s Q&A with local cast member and also Denver Post pop-music critic on being a “Spring Awakening” fanatic.
This weekend’s other theater openings
“An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein” Forget what you know about “The Giving Tree.” “An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein” is a tribute to the children’s book writer’s more adult, gleeful and at times more ghoulish humor. Through Feb. 19. Presented by Devil’s Thumb Productions at the Wesley Chapel, 1290 Folsom St., Boulder,
“Bug” Tracy Letts’ tough tale pits a crack-addicted divorcee and a troubled young military veteran against a vast conspiracy of increasingly scary, and possibly imaginary, enemies. Through Feb. 26. Star Bar Players, 310 Tia Juana St., Colorado Springs, or 719-390-0255
Colorado New Play Summit Five public readings over the next two days of new plays that are being tested for consideration on the Denver Center Theatre Company’s new season. Jones and Ricketson Theatres, 303-893-4100 or
“The Heyokah Project” This new play celebrates the clown from the Lakota Sioux culture who asks the dangerous questions, balances the sacred with the profane and encourages us to laugh at ourselves. Through Feb. 27. Manitou Art Theatre, 1367 Pecan St., Colorado Springs, 719-685-4729 or
“Let Me Hear You Smile” A family comedy told in reverse. As it opens, Neil has retired from the family hardware store. By the end of the play, the actors are playing age 5. Through Feb. 20. Arvada Festival Playhouse, 5665 Olde Wadsworth Blvd., or 303-422-4090
“The Little Foxes” What was a man in a wheelchair doing on a staircase?” That’s the $75,000 question in Lillian Hellman’s blistering drama of the Old South. Through March 20. Germinal Stage-Denver, 2450 W. 44th Ave., 303-455-7108 or
“Love Letters” Local personalities, rotating nightly, read from A.R. Gurney’s simple love story that covers a couple through 50 years of letters and cards. This fundraising production marks the debut of the new Cherry Creek Theatre. Readers include Lannie Garrett and Kirk Montgomery (tonight), and Janet Elway and boyfriend Kevin Kretzmar (Monday). Through Monday, and again Feb. 19. Shaver Ramsey Showroom, 2414 E. Third Ave., 303-800-6578 or cherrycreektheatre
“My Comic Valentine” The Evergreen Players present an evening of love-themed improv comedy, followed by an hour version of the play “Parallel Lives,” featuring Gail Montgomery and Lisa DeCaro playing men and women who struggle through the common rituals of modern life. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Center/Stage, 27608 Fireweed Drive, or 303-674-4934
“The Unsinkable Molly Brown” Classic musical about the feisty Colorado gal who marries a lucky prospector, enters the highest eschelons of European society and survives the sinking of the Titanic. Through March 13. Town Hall Arts Center, 2450 W. Main St., Littleton, 303-794-2787 or
“The Wedding Singer” Stage adaptation of the hit Adam Sandler movie set in 1985 about a rock-star wannabe who, shot through the heart, ends up making every wedding as disastrous as his own. Until he meets a sympathetic waitress who wins his affection. Directed by “So You Think You Can Dance” choreographer Mandy Moore. Through March 6. Aurora Fox, 9900 E. Colfax Ave., Aurora, 303-739-1970 or
Complete theater listings
Go to our complete list of in Colorado, including summaries, run dates, addresses, phones and links to every company’s home page. Or check out our listings or
The Running Lines blog
Catch up on John Moore’s roundup of theater news and dialogue.
