Controversial play now heading to the Caucasus

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Renowned US feminist writer Eve Ensler’s controversial play 'The Vagina Monologues' is on its way to the Caucasus. Following Tbilisi and Baku, the play will be staged in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, in April but debate has already started, with some upset by the sexual imagery of the title. Turkey first staged the play in 2003 amid controversy

Turkish theater actress Almula Merter, the director of Turkey's production of 'The Vagina Monologues.'

“The Vagina Monologues” theater play will make its Armenian debut next month, yet the performance’s sensitive subject matter is already generating plenty of discussion in the Transcaucasus nation about sex and women’s rights.

“It is very important to stage such plays in this region where we live. The fact that women have sexual needs is ignored,” freelance Armenian journalist Ani Hovhannesyan recently told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

The play, which was written by U.S. feminist Eve Ensler in 1996, has traveled to many countries around the world, including Muslim countries such as Egypt and Turkey. After stops in Tbilisi and Baku on its current tour, “The Vagina Monologues” will come to Yerevan, where it has all drawn reaction from some upset by the sexual imagery occasioned by the title.

“Women are dying every day in my country because of domestic violence,” Milena Bavagan, who adapted the play to the stage in Armenia, told the Daily News. “I want to ask if those who are against this play are aware of this painful fact.”

Play speaks to women’s problems common throughout Caucasus

Datevig Aghabedyan, a program assistant at the Women’s Resource Center in Armenia, said women’s problems in all three countries were typically the same.

“As the Women’s Resource Center in Armenia, we have been carrying out joint projects with Georgian and Azerbaijani women; we discuss common problems and try to find solutions,” she said.

In the Armenian adaptation of the play, some small changes will be made by the director to suit the Armenian context, said Bavagan, adding that their purpose was to make women more conscious about their rights with the play. “Violence against women should end,” she said.

Aghabedyan said her women’s center received phone calls every day from victimized women. “Most of the calls are because of physical and psychological violence. Of course the number of rape victims is very high. Our relations with Azerbaijani and Georgian women continue because our problems are the same.”

Turkish controversy

The play caused a storm of debate when it was first staged in Turkey in 2003. Its director, Turkish theater actress Almula Merter, was sued by the Kadıköy District Governor’s Office for sexual provocation because of the word “vagina” in the show’s poster. Merter also received death threats.

Having experienced adversity in trying to bring the play to the Turkish stage, Merter said she was ready to support Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian women in the fight for rights. “Never take a step backward and never give up demanding your rights.”

“Those criticizing this play get stuck on the word ‘vagina,’” said Merter. “But Ensler handles many issues, from birth to maidenhood and from rapes in Bosnia to burqas, in this play.”

She said the Kadıköy District Governor’s Office had said the group could perform the play on condition that they removed the word “vagina” from the title.

“The word was found provocative and scary by the Kadıköy district governor at the time,” she said.

In the end, however, Merter staged the play under its original name despite receiving death threats.

“Newspapers called me a naughty woman but I don’t care. The main reason why I staged this play was to draw attention to rape and violence against women,” she said, adding that she would stage it again if possible.

‘Play needs to be brought to rural areas’

Merter staged the play even in the remote parts of Anatolia and talked to women there about their problems. Hovhannesyan said a similar thing should be done in Armenia as well.

“This play should be performed in small districts and villages in Armenia, too. Women living there think that their vagina is only for giving birth. But in spite of that there are also women who really know their rights in my country,” she said.

Ultimately, Hovhannesyan said discussing the issues in the play was a must. “An excessive imposition in a closed society may cause social explosion.”