Tony Award nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega ('Rent') will guest star in the rotating cast of Los Monólogos de la Vagina, the Spanish language version of Eve Ensler's groundbreaking The Vagina Monologues, for three weeks from June 3-22. The production is currently in previews for a limited Off-Broadway run at the Westside Theatre, the original home of the show's three-year run that ended in 2003. It opens May 18.
Directed by Jaime Matarredona, Los Monólogos de la Vagina comes to Nueva York courtesy of Morris Gilbert and Federico González Compeán, producers of the long-running Mexico City version, where theatergoers have for 14 years had the opportunity to hear monologues entitled "Porque le Gustaba Verla" and "La Vagina Furiosa" and witness the vagina referred to as "orchida," "pepita" and even "cucaracha." All told, the play has been translated into 50 languages, according to The New York Times.
Gilbert said that Ensler herself years ago had the idea of bringing the Spanish language version to the U.S., and the dream has at last become a reality. The initial cast of the New York production includes Míriam Colón, Obie Award-winning founder of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, and also includes Kate del Castillo; Angélica Vale, star of La fea mas bella (Mexico's Ugly Betty); and Grammy-winner Angélica María.
Daphne Rubin-Vega, perhaps still best known for originating the role of Mimi Marquez in Rent on Broadway, is also a movie and television actress and a recording artist. She was most recently seen on Broadway as Stella Kowalski in the 2012 revival of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.
The Vagina Monologues has been controversial from the start, with feminists and others scorning it for various reasons. Just last month Germaine Greer referred to the "never-ending afterlife of the ghastly Vagina Monologues" in The New Statesman. And William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, recently cited a production of The Vagina Monologues as one reason he's decrying his alma mater Georgetown University for not being Catholic enough.
On the other hand, the show spawned the advocacy movement V-Day, A Global Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls. And it continues to be performed all around the world. This weekend, for example, Ensemble Studio Theatre is gathering dozens of notable entertainers in Los Angeles for three benefit performances with casts including Sally Kirkland, Pamela Des Barres, Kathleen Coyne and Lee Meriwether. This spring has also seen performances in Chennai, India and at Oxford University among countless other stagings.
For tickets visit the Los Monólogos de la Vagina website.
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