Now, there’s nothing particularly wrong with hating men, or more specifically heterosexual men, who have demonstrated, throughout recorded history, an almost pathological propensity for degrading, demoralizing, demeaning and destroying the women in their societies.  The horrors visited upon women by men, right now, around the world, shock the modern liberal sensibility into arrest—forced female circumcision, ritualized gang-rape, community stonings; the list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

But finding a clearly identifiable enemy—in this case, straight men—oversimplifies the problems that women face.  It ignores the many positive aspects of heterosexual union, it reduces a complex, multigendered, transgendered spectrum into an artificial superimposed binary, and, most importantly, it abrogates women of their complicity in female oppression.  For instance, most young Jamaican women face enormous pressure from their mothers, aunts and other female relatives to get married, despite the unhappy marriages in which most of these older women feel trapped.  This cycle perpetuating the status quo will not be broken simply by hating men.

Thus The Vagina Monologues, since its debut in 1996, has rightly come under criticism, from men and women, conservatives and feminists alike, for its somewhat monotonic depiction of men, and their ties to rape, especially in light of one skit, ‘The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could’, which celebrates a 13-year-old girl seduced by an older woman with the aid of alcohol.

That may be its one flaw.

Because The Vagina Monologues is also the most liberating, lively, electrifying time you could have at the theatre this year.  It’s smart.  It’s funny.  Wickedly funny.  So funny you will cry.  It’s heart-wrenching.  Gut-wrenching.  So sad you have to laugh.  It’s warm.  It’s wild.  It seduces you.  It slaps you in the face.  It carries you, as on a moving walkway, inescapably towards its celebration of women, of femininity, of, well… vaginas.

Vaginas are at the center, so to speak, of Eve Ensler’s play, which grew out of her interviews with over two hundred women of all ages, shapes and backgrounds.  There’s ‘Hair’, performed competently by Rushae Watson, about a woman whose husband wanted her to shave her, um, you know.  There’s ‘The Flood’ (Makeda Solomon, almost persuasive), about a septuagenarian whose gushing sexual excitement as a teenager scarred her for life.  There’s ‘The Vagina Workshop’, done by the captivating, talented, attuned Rishille Bellamy-Pelicie, about one New York woman who finds sexual liberation in a group therapy session.  Her measured steps through embarrassment, doubt, fear and discovery are, by itself, worth the ticket price.

Always-excellent grand dame Leonie Forbes graces us with ‘Hey Miss Pat’, a monologue Ensler added after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  You’re not supposed to knock a grand dame, but it would have been even better without the script in her hands.  The truth is that the show, under the guidance of director Fabian Thomas, is too long, at a sweltering three hours.  (Note to Mr Thomas: if we wanted to sit in a hot chamber for three hours of wounded monologuing, we’d have gone to Finance Minister Audley Shaw’s budget presentation.)  The less-rehearsed pieces, like ‘Hey Miss Pat’, ‘Crooked Braid’ (Native American stories), and ‘They Beat the Girl out of my Boy, or so They Tried’ (transgender stories), should have been excised.

In the original show, Ensler performed all the monologues herself.  Here, the cast is a dozen women, including Noelle Kerr, who finally has a chance to show some acting chops (unlike on Royal Palm Estate, which makes everyone look bad); Nadean Rawlins (Season Rice), engaging and committed as usual; and Hilary Nicholson, appropriately affected and uptight in a rant about tampons, douches, and other invasive paraphernalia.

The Vagina Monologues is now the centerpiece of a global fight against violence towards women, which climaxes each year with V-Day, a celebration of womanhood that usually includes performances of Ensler’s play.  Part of the proceeds from Friday’s performance went to the Sisters to Sisters organization.  Sadly, that means you’ll have to wait a whole year for another taste of Vagina.

Why does Mr Thomas, a longtime executive, have it in for Monique, the new marketing manager, apart from the need for her character to face obstacles? Does Kathy, her best friend, have any purpose in life other than to visit Monique? Given that all Kathy does is offer Monique a willing ear, why does Monique talk awkwardly to herself in her office and apartment, instead of to Kathy as she otherwise does? Why does every sequence stretch well beyond its need? The first performance ran until quarter to eleven, not least because every sequence in the first act requires a set change. Most of Act Two takes place in a single master bedroom. Most of Act One, with little accommodation, could have transpired inside Monique’s office at Exquisite Perfumes.

The most serious flaw, however, is that Anderson abandons his protagonists in the second act. Up to intermission, their drives are clear—Stanley Preston, better at capturing scents than mates, is looking for a second chance at love; Monique Smith, having bounced between jobs, locations and relationships, is looking for stability at work and at home.

The first half of No Compromise is thus quite enjoyable, as Stanley and Monique dance around their attraction. Actors Bobby Smith and Aisha Davis fall short of looking in love, but their performances are still entertaining. Both make good use of their physicality. Smith has the air of a man who has always eaten well, and he borrows something from the pantaloon of old Italian theatre. Davis deploys her dancerly figure with the right restraint, teasing us as well as her fellow actors. Their scenes together, of which there are many, seem comfortable, although Davis may have been distracted by opening night jitters. Smith is at ease playing his enamoured businessman.

But having more or less achieved their objectives, the second act leaves them stranded, and No Compromise never fully recovers. Nadia Khan as confidante Kathy and Ainsley Whyte in dual roles as Mr Thomas and Pastor Myrie energize the stage with their comic timing and presence, but the actors cannot (and should not) rescue the drifting script.

Bobby Clarke’s direction is adequate, although the blocking (the art of moving the actors on the stage) could have better correlated with Stanley and Monique’s proximity to their goals, and the state of their relationship. Sound design is thoroughly effective, if a little conspicuous—music spilling through a security entrance evokes an entire nightclub; the noises of cell phones, which proliferate on the set, add a touch of realism.

Playwright Anderson tackles one of the unwieldy universals—the search for love. He gives us two of life’s messy acts—the excitement of the chase, and the stultifying routine that can subsequently steal in, like parasitic vines, and strangle a relationship. It’s just too bad No Compromise follows the same trajectory.

One half of arts criticism is, of course, to evaluate the work of art, to appraise it and to place it in context, as the product of a specific person or culture, a specific place or time, or all of the above. If the original work is transplanted to another time, another place, or another culture, that job becomes doubly difficult. Such is the case with Colored Girls, running this week at the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts—an adaptation by Trevor Nairne, local playwright and director, of a seminal 30-year-old choreopoem by American artist Ntozake Shange.

Paulette Williams grew up after World War II in racially segregated St Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a wealthy black Air Force surgeon. She was bussed to a white school, where she suffered. She married young, and suffered. She separated, suffered, and attempted suicide. She changed her name to Ntozake Shange, moved to New York, and staged a collection of her poetry called For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. The play went on to Broadway and pushed Shange into the American spotlight as a leading black feminist voice.

So Colored Girls is a work of intense pain, the pain of living a life doubly disadvantaged—being black and female in America—without any crutches except those you fashion for yourself. Seven actresses, draped in bright cloths, deliver monologues describing domestic abuse, the loss of virginity (voluntary and involuntary), unwanted pregnancy—the whole litany of psychological scars is laid bare on the stage, as the women have their innocence and naiveté forcibly removed by the men they encounter. The poems are filled with beautiful, layered, deeply moving writing—the harsh cadences arrest the listener, punctuated by softer ones that caress the ear.

Unfortunately, Trevor Nairne and the students under his direction fail to give the writing its due. Shange’s poetry is packaged as confessionals taking place in a balm yard, a spiritual space intended, according to director’s notes, to “amplify the healing” of the women, but which has the opposite effect. Worse, the confessions are under the guidance of three “revivalists”, led by a man! This is a cardinal sin. Not only does it sully the sacred feminine space created on stage, but it robs the women of their agency, effectively undermining the raison d’être for the piece. The revivalists also lend a counter-productive farcical tinge to a criminally serious piece of theatre, with outbursts and reprimands played for humour.

When practicing monologues, actors often use a fellow actor as a dummy to motivate their lines. The male revivalist, who remains on stage throughout, may have been there in this capacity, to help the seven actresses-in-training. As it is, their performances were uneven, with standout turns by Joan Sappleton and Risanne Martin. Mostly, the students are hampered by the need to deliver a performance—acting with a capital A, they play emotions rather than characters. The School of Drama could use a big Stanislavskian kick in the assignments.

But the second half of arts criticism is being a curator for the public—guiding, through cogent and articulate opinion, what should or should not be experienced. Colored Girls is still a must-see show, a brave and provocative work, staged and acted by people committed to their craft. Despite missteps and mistakes, Mr Nairne and his students should be proud to provide a glorious, life-affirming breath of fresh air from the indistinguishable gaggle of ensemble comedies in the marketplace.