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Why the title? Eve Ensler explains, "What we don't say, we don't see, acknowledge or remember. What we don't say becomes a secret and secrets often create shame and fear and myths." The VM is performed at universities throughout the world on Valentine's Day. The V-Day Initiative is a campaign to end sexual violence against women, to proclaim Valentine's Day as the day to celebrate women and demand the end of abuse. Ensler offered the rights free and clear to any university who wanted to stage the play during a 10-day span in February, for up to three nights, provided the proceeds go to services for women who have been the victims of sexual and domestic abuse. For, despite what you may read on EW's letters to the editor page, 95 percent of all victims of domestic abuse in the U.S. are women. That number is probably higher throughout the world. And, you won't find female victims brave enough to write letters to the editor, because they live in fear. This year, the play is being sponsord by the EMU Cultural Forum with proceeds going to support Womenspace and Sexual Assault Support Services. The cultural forum is collaborating with the UO Department of Theater Arts in putting on the show. Keely Helmick and Nicole Barrett are students who are directing the piece. All the readers are students. Although Helmick and Barrett wanted older women in the cast, only 18-27 year olds showed up at auditions. "It was kind of a bummer, but it's a great cast. They're working really hard," says Helmick. "It's been a wonderful experience for me. I've learned more and more how diverse women's backgrounds are. I'm open-minded, but I'm only 20 years old and I've learned so much." Helmick hopes older women 4 those in their 50s, 60s and 70s 4 will attend. "The script scares some people off but the message behind it is so unique to theater. The hope is to feel comfortable and to listen. It's a wow script." Helmick says she has also learned that many young women treat their bodies wrong and sometimes allow others to out of insecurity. That makes the play especially poignant for young women of high school and college age who are becoming sexually active and have fears and concerns, says Helmick. It's also a great date night for mothers and daughters. "Every woman can connect to at least one of the monologues in some way," she says. The VM also offers a unique opportunity for men to listen and learn. "Young guys are just as insecure about these issues," says Helmick. "They can get a lot out of it, too." And she points out, "if women are ever going to be totally equal and if abuse is ever going to end, we have to have the support of men." Those who attended last year's reading know that the evening is a celebration of womanhood, not an evening of male bashing. In addition to having different readers this year, some of the monologues have been cut and new ones added, so the show is new. 7 pm Robinson Theatre, Villard Hall, UO. $20 general, $15 students. 346-4373. *** Better come ready with your romantic vocabulary, say the wild women of WYMPROV!. That is, during WYMPROV!s Valentine's Day Massacre: All You Need is Love (and a ticket) Show. When the quartet of comediennes call on the audience for suggestions, be suggestive. During the evening of comedy improv, composed of skits and silliness and reliant upon audience participation, if a location is asked for, think of some place romantic. "Instead of 'post office,' say 'the backseat of a Chevy on Skinner's Butte,'" suggests Sally Sheklow, a WYMPROV! member, along with Vicki Silvers, Enid Lefton and Deb Martin. Sheklow promises the women have dug "deeper into the costume trunk for some sexy surprises." Following in the troupe's tradition of being irreverant toward all holidays on an equal basis, the evening is for singles, couples, those who swear they'll never fall in love again, and others. In fact, they even promise to "extoll the virtues of spinsterhood," she says, adding, "from celibate to sex fiend, there's something for you." The massacre occurs at 8 pm Wednesday, Feb. 14 at the Lord Leebrick Theatre. $8 in adv., $10 dos. 465-0516.
Robert Gover's daring first book, The Hundred Dollar Misunder-standing, written 40 years ago and recently re-issued, remains a disturbing farce 4 but for very different reasons than when originally published. Its once "racy" subject matter about a college boy going to a brothel seems tepid by today's standards. (Any news program about Monica's notorious blue dress was probably more titillating.) The plot unfolds one night at the beginning of the space race during the height of the Cold War and well before the sexual revolution. The narrative loops forward, cutting back and forth between the competing first-person perspectives of its two racially opposite protagonists, J.C. and Kitten. At issue is the status of a sexual favor and whether it fell into the professional or amateur category. In the farcical tradition of authors such as Jonathan Swift, Gover doesn't depict either character within the stranglehold of realism but rather in the broadest of strokes possible for his argument. In the new preface, the author reveals that when his book was first published, authorities on each side of the racial debate found the character representing their perspective "cartoonish" and in need of refinement, but found the other character to be dead-on believable. This is the work's great achievement 4 how each side struggles to define "self" and gather deeper context in relation to its impossibly opposite "other." It is also where much of the book's laugh-out-loud humor and poignancy arises. By revealing how profoundly these two people misunderstand everything about each other's thoughts and feelings, the characters speak across generations. J.C. is as outlandishly self-congratulatory, dense, and uptight as the five-years-younger Kitten is wise and worldly. Gover's ear for language makes the novel particularly vivid, and its construction feels almost symphonic as these brash, unique voices intermingle and interrupt each other to achieve different perspectives within the twice-rendered scenes. Misunderstanding begs the question of how much has really changed in how we regard interracial relationships. It's more than a little troubling that this novel explores a topic few today touch with any depth.
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