24 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019
activism to end violence against women
and girls. It started in 1998, spinning off
the global phenomenon that was – is –
the Monologues.A
part from cries of “vulgar” and worse
from the conservative, churchy end
of the spectrum, there have always
been controversies. One monologueoriginally told of the sexual awakening of
a 13-year-old girl with an older woman.
These days, she’s 16. More recently, the
odd US university scrapped its annual
production of the play because it was
perceived to exclude trans women who
don’t have vaginas. “Which, by the way,
was not even true,” Ensler says, “because IEVE ENSLER
‘I
keep thinking, okay, it’s
going to go out of date this
year,” says Eve Ensler, calling
from New York. “Please let
it go out of date. Please let
everyone know their vaginas
and see their vaginas and
love their vaginas by now.
But the great thing about patriarchy is
how stubborn and persistent it is. It’s
like the herpes virus. You think it’s gone
away, until the conditions are ripe, and
then it surfaces again.”
We’re only a few minutes in and
already three vaginas and a herpes.
Classic Eve Ensler. She’s the Ameri-
can playwright, thespian, activist and
feminist whose 1996 play, The Vagina
Monologues, has caused women around
the world to find themselves giddily
chanting the C-word at her behest.
Check your primness at the door. It will
do you no favours here.
Ensler is amiably in your face, even on
the phone. “Right?” she demands. “You
know?” Her conversation is an invita-
tion to a collaboration. She talks about
her most famous alliance with women- “21 years of vagina madness!” – as a
sort of frankencreation with an existence
beyond her. “Yes, I put pen to paper and
I wrote those monologues, which are
fictional monologues based on hundreds
of interviews, but there’s some energy. I
mean, there were 900 [V-Day] productions
in February.” February 14, Valentine’s Day,
is also V-Day, an annual occasion of global
APOLOGY
EXCEPTED
Activist, feminist and celebrated author of The Vagina
Monologues Eve Ensler never received an apology from her
father for his sexual and emotional abuse, so she did it for him
in an act of “heroic ventriloquism”. by DIANA WICHTEL ● photograph by PAULA ALLEN
EVE ENSLER
wrote a trans monologue many years ago
that has been part of the V-Day move-
ment for many years. So, it was interesting
that ...” Ensler decides not to go there.
“Look, I’m going to leave that alone.”
Fair enough. Twenty-one years down
the track, she still operates in tricky ter-
ritory. The play was – is – not everyone’s
taboo-trashing cup of tea. In 1996, it was
revolutionary, broke silences, became an
idea greater than the sum of its remorse-
lessly named body parts. It drew people
such as Jane Fonda, Oprah Winfrey and
Meryl Streep into Ensler’s starry orbit. It
sparked action for women across commu-
nities, countries and cultures. Chant with
her, or no thanks, Ensler is a legend.
But we’re here to talk about a different
kind of collaboration: between Ensler and
her dead father. The Apology is a small,
startling grenade of a book, with a cover
that looks like the sort of black-bordered
envelope that used to bear bad news.
Ensler has referred to the sexual abuse
and violence she experienced from her
father before – her 2013 memoir, In the
Body of the World, about her experience
of cancer, trawled its legacy: drinking,
drugs, unhealthy relationships. The new
book conjures up the apology she never
had from him in life. It represents a reck-
oning long delayed. “I know, right? Isn’t it
strange to be past 65 and finally figuring
this out.” That’s a long time to exist in a
sort of emotional limbo. “I think it just
took me so long to, first, survive it, then
begin to recover from it, then begin to get