MANILA, Philippines - Monique Wilson is back in the country to celebrate V-Day anew with the benefit performance of the award-winning play The Vagina Monologues, under her New Voice Company, on March 31, 8 p.m. at the Music Museum.
V-Day is a global non-profit movement benefiting women’s anti-violence groups and efforts with the help of its cornerstone activity, The Vagina Monologues. Written by the Tony Award-winning playwright, performer and activist Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues is made up of a growing and varying number of monologues read by women and featuring themes of anti-violence, sexuality and female empowerment.
According to the London-based Monique, this year’s V-Day spotlight is on Haiti where post-Katrina disaster, women are still suffering from abuse and many other forms of violence. The director-actress added that Eve has penned new monologues titled For My Sisters in Port Au Prince Bukavu New Orleans, which will be performed by one of New Voice’s original V-Day actresses Tami Monsod.
What is perhaps the most special thing about this year’s V-Day is that it is honoring Philippine comfort women from the Lila Pilipina organization. Monique said, “We have been celebrating and honoring them, and fighting for justice for them by keeping their stories alive through our V-Day events. But this year, we are also performing a monologue that Eve wrote specially for them, after she met them during her last visit to Manila in 2002.” The piece is called Say It to be performed by broadcaster Ces Drilon and veteran theater actress Pinky Amador.
Other women from the arts, entertainment, media and even politics that New Voice Company has assembled for the two-hour show include Boots Anson-Roa, G Tongi, Aiza Seguerra, Bibeth Orteza, Joy Virata, Juno Henares, Sheila Francisco, Roselyn Perez, Gina Wilson, Mae Paner, Mads Nicolas, Dolly Ann Carvajal, Cynthia Alexander and Kuh Ledesma. Also expect a new generation of theater artists in this year’s staging.
V-Day and The Vagina Monologues are now on its 12th year in the country, with New Voice Company first staging it here in 2000 and subsequently touring it around Asia. Monique, whose body of theater work includes playing Kim in Miss Saigon, recalled, “I had seen the play in New York in 1999 and I had never experienced that kind of theater before — where you were laughing and crying at the same time, where the words and the stories were so powerful that you had recognition and connection to everything you were hearing and witnessing.
“Having been an activist since my student days at UP — I had found a play that merged art, theater and activism in such a meaningful and powerful way — that it became the most natural thing to produce it in the Philippines,” she added.
When New Voice introduced V-Day and The Vagina Monologues, its goals were to “produce a life-changing play to empower Filipina women — and break the silence of abuse and violence surrounding them — and to bring women together to rise up and demand an end to it.”
Monique said, “I think, in many ways, we have achieved a lot of that — we can now say ‘vagina’ on national television and radio, and we do the play and V-Day events year after year, and huge crowds come to watch. But the reality is that violence towards women and girls has not ended, so we still have a lot of work to do, and we still have to keep doing the play and V-Day for the younger generations.”
One thing is certain, being involved in V-Day has changed Monivvque so much. “It has given me courage to keep speaking up about violence against women, and to keep demanding an end to it. It has given me humility and gratitude for the kind of life I have had, which makes me realize that we are here, as artists, to serve a higher purpose in our art than what is just for ourselves. It has politicized me, I am much, much more aware now of issues surrounding women, of world politics, of poverty, war, racism and patriarchy — all issues which affect women. Doing the play and being involved in V-Day have given me purpose, as a woman and as an artist — it really awakened me to the world, and to how powerful women are and can be.”
Meanwhile, Monique has also formed a New Voice Company in the UK, where she is based and teaching acting classes. They’re also starting a feminist theater season soon in the UK, and here in the Philippines, they have just done an original, well-received play called The Male Voice, written and directed by New Voice associate artistic director Rito Asilo, which are about stories of men and their roots of violence. “We are now planning to tour the play around the Philippines and Asia,” Monique said.
(For details, contact the New Voice Company at 896-6695 or 899-0630, or e-mail newvoicecompany@gmail.com. Tickets are available at NVC, Ticketworld [891-9999] and the Music Museum [721-0635].)