Taboo no more

Nothing raises eyebrows in Taiwan quite like references to female genitalia.

But over the past four years, women's groups, theater directors and actresses have drawn attention to the taboo subject with V-Day Taiwan and its headline show, a production of Eve Ensler's hit play The Vagina Monologues. Starting tonight, the play and a number of other events are being staged to raise awareness of women's rights.

Two Chinese-language performances will be performed next weekend at Taipei City Hall Family Theater. Other events scheduled to commemorate V-Day, now in its 10th year, include a staged reading of The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler's anthology A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer, tonight and tomorrow at the Xinyi Citizen Assembly Hall (信義公民會館). Proceeds from the V-Day events will go to three local charities.

"There is no English-language production [of the play] this year so we are having an [English-language] reading from A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer," said Betsy Lan (藍貝芝), who directed the Chinese-language version of The Vagina Monologues in 2005 and 2007 and is one of this year's organizers.

She said that continuing the tradition of an English-language performance is important because many V-Day supporters hail from the expat community.

Nancy Chen (陳亮君), the play's Taipei director, said The Vagina Monologues helps women explore their sexuality in an environment free of guilt and embarrassment.

But the official Mandarin-language version takes a conservative approach to the work and reduces the impact of the original, she said.

Holly Harrington, director of A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer agreed.

"The ideas are very western-focused and the Chinese translation … doesn't have the same punch," she said.

It is necessary to localize the script to appeal to the sensitivities of a particular country, Harrington said.

"If you try to do the 'cunt' piece in Chinese it doesn't fully capture the feeling of the original," she said referring to one of the more explicit monologues.

Still, the play's themes resulted in Chinese censors banning the Mandarin-language version in Shanghai four years ago. Chinese authorities, however, allow the English-language version to be performed.

Ironically, the official Mandarin version of the original, on which the Taipei performance is based, was translated by Nick Yu (喻榮軍), an academic and dramaturge living in Shanghai.

Chen, in conjunction with the 13 actresses performing the play, slightly altered Yu's translation to make it more faithful to the original.

The Vagina Monologues condenses some 200 interviews Ensler conducted with women about their vaginas, sexuality and their stories of violence and sexual abuse. It consists of 17 monologues on topics ranging from pubic hair and masturbation to rape and giving birth. The women interviewed for the play hail from all walks of life, including prostitutes and women living on the street.

A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer, commissioned in 2006 by V-Day International and edited by Ensler, follows the themes found in The Vagina Monologues and collects the writings of world-renowned figures.

"The reading has never been done [in Taiwan] before. Some of the essays are written by men - which is different from The Vagina Monologues," Harrington said.