The latest V-Day announcement contains a discussion of Eve Ensler’s latest play, “The Good Body,” and an accompanying “Love Your Tree” project. The press release being curiously short on details as to the latter, I went to Google and this is what I found. Basically, what I thought sounded like a literal exercise in “tree-hugging” ended up being a literal exercise in navel-gazing. Here are a few snippets:
In the midst of a war in Iraq, in a time of escalating global terrorism, when civil liberties are disappearing as fast as the ozone layer, when one woman out of three in the world will be beaten or raped in her lifetime, why write a play about my stomach? …
It’s pure coincidence that she strikes on a similar theme to the writers at Duke and N.C. State. I also like this:
I have been in a dialogue with my stomach for the past three years. I have entered my belly ? the dark wet underworld ? to get at the secrets there. …
Here’s an excerpt from her new play, which goes to explain the “Love Your Tree” project:
LEAH
It?s your stomach. It?s meant to be seen. You Westerners, what are you doing? You are getting even starving girls to give up food. Eve, look at that tree? Do you see that tree? Now look at that tree. (She points to another tree.) Do you like that tree? Do you hate that tree because it doesn?t look like that tree? Do you say that tree isn?t pretty because it doesn?t look like that tree? We?re all trees. You?re a tree. I?m a tree. You ?ve got to love your body, Eve. You?ve got to love your tree.EVE (AS NARRATOR)
Love my tree. Turns out I?m a tree. Love my tree. I?m all tree. My partner?s been worried and he surprises me in Africa. We spend the night in a hut in a netted bed in a safari park. The sound of wild hyenas in the dark. I?m all tree. I?m all naked, dancing tree. I?m all tree inside me. I?m all . . .
No, lady, you are out of your tree.
