In
the Body of the World
Written and performed by Eve Ensler
Directed by Diane Paulus
Performances through March 25, 2018
Manhattan Theater Club, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY
manhattantheaterclub.org
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| Eve Ensler in In the Body of the World (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Eve Ensler’s talent for witty and thought-provoking
solo shows (notably The Vagina Monologues
and The Good Body) continues with
her latest, In the Body of the World, which may even be her most intimate
and personal work yet.
After describing the steadfast
determination of women (horribly scarred physically and psychologically) whom she
met while visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ensler then admits that
something came along to knock her down: cancer. She initially reacted as many do
when something bad happens: she blamed herself, even going so far as to ask
whether, instead of having a baby, she ended up growing a tumor instead?
Despite the bleak prognosis, Ensler
keeps her sense of humor as she describes what she went through—chemo, pain, hope,
despair, even a visit from her alternatingly enervating and helpful sister—as
she kept tabs on the African women creating a City of Joy for those who’ve been
abused. Her humor is laced with heartbreak: she movingly reenacts her final
moments with her dying mother, a woman with whom she wasn’t close but who responded
to Eve’s overtures at the end.
There’s a lot to digest in In the Body of the World, some of it uncomfortably
stark, but Ensler has always bravely blended the personal and the universal
(and the political and cultural and…). Diane Paulus directs sympathetically on Myung
Hee Cho’s wonderfully evocative set—which morphs into an astonishing garden
that Ensler invites the audience onstage to explore after the play
ends—visualizing the beauty in our world, explored by Ensler as potently as
anything she’s done.
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