The award-winning and internationally acclaimed women's rights play The Vagina Monologues has been banned in China's most modern city, staff at the playhouse said yesterday.
"It was scheduled to open Thursday, but we received an order from above not to hold the performance," said an employee at the Shanghai Drama Center. "They said it does not fit with China's national situation."
The performance would have been the first time the play is performed for the public in China.
The Drama Center is the largest playhouse in the bustling metropolis of Shanghai which is considered to be more liberal in its social attitudes, compared to the rest of China.
The banning of the play, how-ever, is a reminder that although Chinese people, especially young people, are becoming more open about sex -- with teenage sex, premarital and extramarital sex on the rise as well as widespread prostitution -- officials remain wary and conservative.
The employee at the Shanghai playhouse said authorities did not cite a specific reason for banning the play, but the word "vagina" is uttered numerous times throughout the performance.
"I never saw it, but people I know who have seen it said it's quite normal," said the employee, who declined to give her name. "It's about us women. It's not vulgar. It's our reproductive organ. It's about our physical freedom."
Written by Eve Ensler, the play, based on several hundred interviews with women around the world, celebrates women's sexuality and focuses on the abuses women suffer around the world.
"Female employees at our drama center who have watched it were very moved. Some of them cried," said the employee.
China Central Television is also facing obstacles trying to broadcast the American sitcom Friends, because sex is mentioned too many times, officials said.
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