I saw “The Vagina Monologues” when it played at the Memorial Auditorium, last year, and I have to say I had high hopes for it when I saw it again this year. It did not disappoint.
The way “The Vagina Monologues” are set up is that each scene is a self-contained monologue that deals with a different issue, ranging from the comedic, like hair or its lack thereof, to more serious issues that include the rape of women during the Bosnian War in 1992.
The play starts out with an intro, telling the audience that the performers were concerned for their vaginas. It then shifts into a list of what people in different places call their vaginas, “including, in Shippensburg, The Raider Bowl.” From there, it goes into the first monologue, “Hair,” which is about, well, hair. Moreover, it is about hair on and around a vagina: the woman narrating the monologue loves the hair — her husband does not.
From that chuckle-worthy opener, the play alternates between comic and serious. While the entire play is great, there were several monologues that I either found hilarious or appreciated for the message that they delivered.
One of those monologues, “My Vagina Was My Village,” deals with the rape camps set up by the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992 war in Bosnia. In the monologue, there are two performers on stage, one representing “before” and one representing “after.” The “before” performer is bright and cheerful, reflecting a happy-go-lucky attitude, telling us how wonderful her attitude toward her vagina is, even calling it her “hometown.” The “after” performer is angry, lamenting her rape at the hands of the soldiers from the Bosnian Serb army. She tells the audience how the soldiers “left their dirty sperm” inside her. The entire monologue is point-counterpoint, but then it ends with both performers telling the audience, “I live someplace else, now. I do not know where that is.” That is when it really hits home.
On the other end of the scale was the monologue “Reclaiming Cunt,” during which the performer, on stage, regales the audience about her love of the word “cunt,” ending with a little audience participation by having them spell out “cunt” and chant it a few times.
The last monologue in the show was a favorite of mine, as well, because the way it capped the play was so gut-bustingly hilarious. It was called “The Woman Who Liked to Make Vaginas Happy,” and it was about a woman who was a sex worker, solely for other women. She talks about how moaning, of all things, was what got her into sex work with women and how she coaxes moans out of the women she works with at different points or in different ways. Then she and a few of the other performers, the “Moanettes,” demonstrated the different types of moans, like “the internship moan” or “the Hunger Games moan.” After demonstrating a wide variety of moans, the “Moanettes” and the original actress end up doing a rendition of “the triple orgasm,” and the curtains come down.
All in all, it was an excellent show and just different enough from last year’s that I was pleasantly surprised. If you have not gone yet, I urge you to go. You will laugh and learn.

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