Moaning for More

There are some works of art that stay with you forever, The Vagina Monologues is not one of them. It is one of those that become a part of your life forever.

My friend told me that there was this play called The Vagina Monologues and it's brilliant... there was a show at Inorbit Mall, Mumbai... I said I’ll come and today, I thank my angels that I said yes... It was the best play I had seen ever...

The Play is a one and a half hour play about, well, what else, the Vagina... it's about four women (at least when I saw there were only four) talking... about Vagina and from the point of view of Vagina.

The four women are Avantika Akerkar, Jayati Bhatia, Sonali Sachdev, and Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, who also happens to be the producer of the show. All four are just awesome. The best part of them is the way they change not just their expression, but their whole body language in the wink of an eye. in a film, you have a cut. Here you don't but u needs to become another character whose story you are telling. That you can learn by the performances of these women. They are so effortless in what they do it's just brilliant.

The performances are so good also because the script is so brilliant. This play had everything. There were times when you would laugh as you have never done before, and at times you will have to sit and think about how it is to be a woman.

Let me take instances from the play and comment on them. First, the Parsi woman. Mahabano Kotwal plays an old Parsi woman who is shy to talk about her Vagina. What starts as a funny confrontation slowly turns on a serious issue of cancer. Watch it for how the script becomes from something to something totally different so smoothly and for the sensitive performance.

Then there was a segment where Avantika performed pages from the diary of a girl... she started as a child turns to a girl of about seven, then to nine, and so on… it’s deals with child rape and lesbianism… very well written but the script is raised to a completely different level by the OSCAR deserving performance by Avantika. When she is a child, her speech pattern, body language, everything is so right… brilliant.

There was also a segment where they spoke about Genital Mutilation. It was heart wrenching and yet funny at the same time. The segment where the women say what vagina is called in different countries is hilarious.

The was also a part where Sonali played a Marathi woman talking about her first time. It was very cute and romantic. But again it was something that became from very good to fantastic by sheer magic of performance.

And now, my favorite part… the MOANING… u will not laugh but guffaw… Jayati proved that she is an absolutely FANTASTIC performer. It was about how for pleasure she became a lesbian prostitute. The way she enacted the moans left the audience in splits. I don’t have words to tell how great it was.

In short this show is about four women sitting and speaking for an hour and a half, by the end of which you will be moaning for more.