As a feminist and a force of nature, Eve Ensler is nothing short of astounding. She has used the worldwide success of “The Vagina Monologues,” her play about female sexual insecurities, to bankroll V-Day, an international movement that combats violence against women. Frank, outspoken and fearless, she’s a fiery reminder of the outrage and idealism that once fueled the feminist movement.
As a playwright, on the other hand, Ensler leaves something to be desired. Her latest examination of feminine self-image, “The Good Body,” is more of a polemic than a play. Like “The Vagina Monologues,” it’s based on extensive interviews with women from many different cultures; Ensler plays all of its characters. But where “Monologues” preserved the quirks and personalities of its sources, “The Good Body” is relentless in its determination to edify. “Monologues” mixed entertainment with its message. “The Good Body” is almost strangled by its own didacticism.
Almost, but not quite. Ensler is an engaging performer and talented creator of portraits, and there are moments when her characters pry themselves from the script’s thematic straitjacket.
“Everywhere I’ve been in the world, women seem to hate one particular part of their bodies,” Ensler tells us in the opening sequence. She starts with herself. Pulling up her top to reveal her stomach, Ensler identifies it as her own personal Waterloo. Food becomes the enemy: “I will see chocolate as poison and pasta as a form of self-punishment. Bread is Satan!”
Bouncing around energetically and changing costumes constantly on Robert Brill’s minimalist set, Ensler takes us on a short tour through a gallery of women both famous and obscure. Most are desperately unhappy.
We meet Cosmopolitan magazine’s founding editor, Helen Gurley Brown, a woman who helped to sculpt the modern feminine physical ideal. “I’ve been able to please everyone but me,” confesses the octogenarian, still a vigorous exercise buff and diet freak.
We travel to a spa, where an angry teen rants about society’s many prejudices against people of girth. During a nocturnal episode of “chunky dunking” with her friends in the spa’s pool, she has a revelation: voluptuousness is beautiful.
At a diet meeting, a Puerto Rican woman explains how to hide your “spread” while making love. A model spends so much time under the knife that she marries her plastic surgeon, who considers her his private masterpiece. In one of the play’s sadder stories (and one of its most graphic), we meet a woman who undergoes painful genital surgery to make herself more desirable to her husband, who we gradually realize is a self-centered boor.
We also hear from supermodel/actress Isabella Rossellini (Ensler does a bang-on impersonation), who speaks with quiet fury about losing a major advertising account after she turned 40. When the company Rossellini modeled for sent her a huge bouquet of flowers to honor her milestone birthday, “I knew I was dead.”
Late in the play, we’re introduced to Lea, a 74-year-old working for the women’s rights movement in Africa. Jolly, wise, comfortable in her own skin, she gently chastises Ensler for her tummy obsession. “Your stomach, it is meant to be obvious, it is meant to be seen!” she says, patting her own belly joyously.
Lea is one of several characters in “The Good Body” who veer dangerously close to caricature. In her eagerness to make a point, Ensler sometimes paints with too broad a brush. We get a hazy sketch, and what few details Ensler provides can seem overly convenient or even dishonest. She needs to think harder about these women, and director Peter Askin must push harder to make Ensler plumb those depths.
That kind of assiduous homework helped to make “The Vagina Monologues” wildly successful. In order for characters to resonate, they need to engross us. More important, they must surprise and amaze; we shouldn’t be able to predict the arc of their stories. In “The Good Body,” that arc is invariably visible. Ensler should forget about her primary purpose of making the world a better place, and just let each character decide where she (and not the playwright) wants to go.
Contact the writer: (714) 796-7979 or phodgins@ocregister.com
