Oh, I can answer that last question: Eve Ensler has a new play. I'd rather be strapped to a treadmill than sit through it.
This quote, oh so surprisingly, got her linked from the bastion of understanding society that is the Instapunshit.
We could bicker back and forth about who makes more of an impact on society, who understands it better, and who more people want to hear comment on culture (at least, who they would pay to hear): an artist or a law professor. But I would guess that as many people want to hear that argument as they would want to listen to a law professor pontificate on society and culture.
Of course, Althouse is speaking of Ensler's new play, The Good Body, which does just what Ensler is famous for: character study. Famous amongst playwrights and theater academia for her tremendous characters, but not so much the general population. Most people probably know Ensler as that playwright who wrote The Vagina monologues. Most people don't know her as the extremely talented specialist of character development: possibly one of the best living, a great professor, and a wonderful counselor.
I'll admit that I'm not a huge fan of Ensler in the way that I'm a fan of Christopher Durang, Sam Shepard, or Caryl Churchill. Meaning that I don't like to sit though Ensler for a great, riveting story, but I do enjoy to sit through her to hear and see a rich history emerge from the character on the stage. It's really quite remarkable.
Furthermore, out of everyone who has helped me along the way, Ensler probably ranks highest. Before, and during, my application period to MFA programs, she was exceptional in assisting me. We also know that all playwrights stick together and fight until the bitter end, unless, people are attacking Mamet -- then we laugh. All of this, I am aware, gives me reason to not agree with Althouse's dismissal of Ensler's newest play.
I agree, I'm not a partial objector.
When it comes to entertainment and the arts I would trust Entertainment Weekly (which is saying a lot) more than a law professor, so I leave you with this short review:
Radical feminist Eve Ensler travels around the world in this follow-up to 1996's Vagina Monologues, a conquistador on the hunt for why her fatty stomach bothers her so much, exploring the eternal feminine obsession with appearance and what women endure in pursuit of perfection. Kicking off the journey by pulling up her shirt to expose the offending gut, Ensler then channels everyone from Cosmo's brittle Helen Gurley Brown to 74-year-old Leah, who fights for women's rights in Africa. The end collapses into Oprah-esque self-affirmation, but it's hard not to give over to Ensler's honesty and easy humor. (TC) B+ --WP
Whitney Pastorek, "The Good Body", Entertainment Weekly (December 3, 2004).
