'Moist cake' theatre play highlights abuse

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Thursday December 9, 2010 00:00

The audience at Botswana Craft's Mogopong was on Tuesday treated to the vagina's highs and lows from sex, love, orgasm, menstruation, to birth and rape highlighted in monologues featuring three actresses, Tumie Ramsden, Tshepo Ntshole and Ayanda Khala.

The theatre opens with a radio interview based on the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence, where radio personality Ntshole asks Malebogo about her endurance in an abusive relationship that lasted for over five years.

Malebogo explains that the straw that finally broke the camel's back was when her partner shot and injured her, an incident that finally made her leave him.

Her advice to women in abusive relationships is not to sacrifice their emotional happiness and physical wellbeing by maintaining such unhealthy relationships.

Packed with testimonies of sexual experiences, the monologues vary from; losing their cherry during adolescence, trading their most precious items for material gains and in the process encountering countless sexual abuse episodes, sometimes sex without protection as payback for cheating on boyfriends.

The monologists literally reel with 'stories of their moist cakes'.

Though most of these testimonies are in bad taste, there are others more positive such as the anxiety of waiting for womanhood and learning from their mothers how to be better wives and mothers of tomorrow.

Some of the monologues are entitled 'I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me/ I Remember Vividly, Throwing His Cellphone At Him, Girls Are Getting Blackberries And You Bring Me A Nokia'.

Then there is, 'My Angry Vagina' where the monologist humorously complains about injustices to the vagina, such as tampons invasion, big baby heads forcing their way through as well as the penetration of tools used by obstetricians and gynecologists.

The themes of the vagina, as a tool of female empowerment and as an embodiment of individuality are recurrent. The Tuesday episode closes with the actresses reminding women that they have a choice of leaving any abusive situation. 

The charity geared theatrical piece showcased Monday to Wednesday with Aldo Brincat as the director.

The Vagina Monologues from which The Moist Cake is adapted is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler.

Originally she starred in the production; when she left the play it was recast with three celebrity monologists.

The production has been staged internationally, and a television version featuring Ensler was produced by cable TV channel HBO- a USA entertainment channel.

In 1998, V-Day a global non-profit movement was launched and raised over $75 million for women's anti-violence groups through benefits of The Vagina Monologues.