A theater performance at the Tempe campus Tuesday night that intended to educate students about sexual violence was met with some apprehension and disagreement from its audience.
The presentation of the MENding Monologues, an offshoot of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, was held in the Memorial Union and was co-sponsored by the Interfraternity Council and ASU Wellness and Health Promotion.
After tackling issues like regret, choice, equality, faith, parenting and self-worth through dramatized accounts of their own sexual pasts, the MENding Monologues theatre troupe, headed by founder Derek Dujardin, sat and listened to a barrage of complaints and concerns about the performance.
Freddy Roman, an assistant director of Wellness and Health Promotion at ASU, quickly informed the audience of her thoughts about the performance.
“I am a little bit concerned about what was told here tonight,” Roman said. “We do not support victim blame.”
Dujardin said he thought Roman’s reaction was in reference to a specific skit, where a woman dressed in a puffy pink dress and impersonating an archetypical Southern belle introduced herself as “the vagina.” The woman was speaking on the subject of women’s choice and women’s liberation, declaring a no “open-door policy” on her “sacred parts.”
“I’m going to look at the piece again and see if anything needs to be done to it,” Dujardin said. “These are all real stories, so you can’t really say ‘change your story to fit into this cube.’”
The Interfraternity Council coordinator Matt Hunt said he “may not agree” with the approach the performers took, but said he encouraged dialogue about the subject of sexual assault among members of fraternities and sororities.
“When I was an undergraduate at another campus, we never talked about [sexual assault],” Hunt said. “We hope sexual violence doesn’t continue — we actually wish it never started.”
The troupe performed several humorous bits, including one narrated by the fictional Russian plastic surgeon “Dr. Boris Vaginski,” and a pseudo-award show naming male and female body parts as award nominees.
The performers also mixed in tones of sincerity, like a recollection of one woman’s stint in a mental institution while her ex-boyfriend became sexually involved with her mother.
Dujardin said through the 15 performances the group has done together, most people come up to him to commend him on the unique performance.
“This is probably the first time we’ve received this kind of reaction,” Dujardin said.
Elementary education sophomore Briana Edgerton said it was very interesting to see a man’s perspective on sexual issues.
“I feel like the woman’s side is told over and over again,” Edgerton said. “It’s nice to be reminded that I’m special and should respect my body, but I thought it was more interesting to hear the men who spoke about their confusion in adolescence and relationships with women and family.”
Reach the reporter at mhendley@asu.edu
