Review

'Monologues' is pleasantly entertaining

TAMPA - Even if you keep hearing how great The Vagina Monologues is, something about it seems unappealing. Three women, just sitting there, barely interacting, reading off note cards and talking about sexual organs for 90 minutes. No sets, no music, almost no movement. It sounds so clinical, so tedious.

So it's a pleasant surprise to find that Eve Ensler's play, which has become a cultural phenomenon over the past few years, is fairly lively, often very funny and, in a subtle, unusual way, extremely theatrical.

Its incarnation at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center also benefits from three entertaining performances, which are more impressive because of the limitations the format imposes.

The proceedings get off to a slow start. The actors (Gretchen Lee Krich, Joyce Lee and Mackenzie Phillips), dressed in similar red and black outfits, deliver a short treatise on the word vagina. Mildly amusing, nothing more.

Then they step out of character and announce that they'll be in the lobby after the show to collect money to raise awareness of violence against women. It's a worthy cause, certainly, but a horrible dramatic blunder. It's akin to actors in Romeo and Juliet interrupting the play to ask for donations to fight teen suicide.

But that nonsense is soon over, and the monologues begin. The nine pieces, based on interviews with hundreds of women, range from silly to salacious, lighthearted to profoundly disturbing. Topics range from rape to childbirth.

Each actor has at least one chance to shine. Krich is especially impressive in a very funny piece as a prim Englishwoman who discovers her inherent sexuality through a vagina workshop.

Lee is best as a sexually abused girl who is eventually lovingly seduced by an older woman. Lacking costume changes or other conventional theatrical accoutrements, Lee has to evoke the character, and her aging from early childhood to her teen years, solely with her voice. It's a precise, richly nuanced performance.

Phillips has a couple of high points, first in a straightforward, powerful monologue about sexual mutilation and toward the end in a crowd-pleasing bit in which she demonstrates types of ecstatic moaning.

There are some fairly blatant weaknesses. In one renowned but completely stupid bit, Lee has the audience chant a vulgar synonym for vagina. And when the talk turns to politics, there are the oh-so-predictable jokes about our president's last name.

The Vagina Monologues is aimed at women, and no doubt women will find it more meaningful than most men will. But there's no reason for men to stay home. Most of the monologues are well-crafted and will enlighten, move or entertain people of both genders.

The Vagina Monologues plays through Sunday in Ferguson Hall at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 North W.C. MacInnes Place, Tampa. 7:30 p.m. today, 8 p.m. Friday, 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $22.50-$39.50 plus service charge. (813) 229-7827.

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