The V-word on Women’s Day

Jane Fonda’s bright blue eyes mirror the play’s intensity. Marisa Tomei’s fluid body language reflects its passion. And creat...

Jane Fonda’s bright blue eyes mirror the play’s intensity. Marisa Tomei’s fluid body language reflects its passion. And creator Eve Ensler wears her play on her sleeve, dressed in The Vagina Monologues’ ‘official’ colours — red and black.

The play came on Women’s Day, staged by Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal’s team at the Tata Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts. The proceeds of the Mumbai shows will go to two local women’s shelters. ‘‘We don’t impose an agenda but offer support to existing groups,’’ says Ensler on V-Day India: A Celebration Of The Indian Woman Warrior.

‘‘I was one of the first celebrities involved,’’ says Tomei, who caught the closing show of Ensler’s off-Broadway cult hit based on women’s relationships with their vaginas. ‘‘We became friends. But when I first agreed to participate, I just thought about saying the word ‘vagina’ to an audience of two — my parents!’’ says Tomei.

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‘‘I was one of the last invitees,’’ says Fonda, who caught the 1997-premiered production about three years ago. ‘‘Some of my closest friends have been victims of violence, of incest. And the V-Day movement aims to stop this, world over,’’ says the actor. The local performances will see Tomei perform My Short Skirt. Fonda will render I Was In The Room, on a woman witnessing her daughter give birth. ‘‘Eve and I have both experienced this,’’ she confides, adding, ‘‘The vagina expands and contracts, bleeds and gives life — just like the heart.’’

Ensler will perform Jaddi, an Indian excerpt from her new play The Good Body, based on her ‘‘Mumbai women’’ interviews. ‘‘Salwar-kameez with Nike shoes and a terrific sense of humour — that sums up Indian women for me,’’ she says. ‘‘Jaddi is about an older woman who, after ten years of exercise, is still overweight. But she loves her hips, her breasts, her body.’’