Veiled Monologues

Lifting the veil

A Dutch playwright inspired by 'Vagina Monologues' looks at sexuality a Dutch playwright

By Stacey Kors, Globe Correspondent | October 12, 2007

LENOX - While performing in the Dutch version of Eve Ensler's popular play "The Vagina Monologues," Adelheid Roosen was struck with an idea for her next theater project. "After the third time I did it," she says, "I thought, why doesn't this exist for the [Muslim] woman? This is a wonderful concept for knowing more about her way of loving, her intuition, her instinct, and her sensuality."

Roosen, a celebrated actress, playwright, and director, is known in the Netherlands for her cultural quests. She's traveled the world to study other cultures for her work, and she founded the first female Moroccan theater group in Holland. But a liberal white Dutch woman questioning Muslim women about a subject as intimate as their sexuality - women often from deeply religious societies where females may be oppressed and even concealed from public view - would seem a trickier proposition, especially in the post-9/11 world of strained relations between Islam and the West.

Yet there's something about Roosen's energy and attitude, and her obvious regard for other cultures and values, that seems to have transcended such concerns. As she crisscrossed Holland in 2002, interviewing 70 women of all ages from countries including Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, "doors went open immediately," says the tall, expressive 49-year-old, "and so much more wide open than the Dutch do. You go to the kitchen and they cook you food, they make tea . . . you could really live the whole day with them. I had tremendous, beautiful conversations."

Out of these conversations came "The Veiled Monologues," which receives its New England premiere at the American Repertory Theatre Tuesday through Oct. 21. A powerful and often surprising look at Muslim women's sex uality and sexual identity, "The Veiled Monologues" has already been performed in three languages since its 2003 premiere and has been staged everywhere from a large theater festival in Ankara to a private gathering in Jordan, a Turkish mosque, and the Hague, in front of the Dutch Parliament.

The play's success lies in its accessible approach to taboo topics. With a couch as the main set piece and the suggestive sounds of a Turkish saz in the background, three Dutch actresses of Muslim upbringing sing, dance, and share stories: humorous recollections of sexual foibles, delicate struggles of young girls anguished over keeping their virginity, disturbing tales of domestic abuse. As one performer speaks, the others sit or recline on the couch, listening and murmuring responses to one another as well as to the audience. The scenario invites the audience, in a sense, to sit on the couch with them, to participate in these very personal experiences.

Another key to the work's appeal is that the monologues are told in a frank yet nonjudgmental fashion, maintaining respect for the Islamic faith and cultural traditions that engendered them. Steering clear of black-and-white morality, as well as the gray areas of politics, "The Veiled Monologues" works to change audiences' perceptions - and misperceptions - by temporarily lifting the veil on complex emotions and beliefs often hidden from the non-Muslim world. The result is a rare glimpse into the kind of strong communities of women that have privately flourished in male-dominated cultures.

Roosen and the cast spent two weeks in August workshopping the play at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox before taking it to New York for its US and English-language debut, in repertory with Roosen's play "Is.Man" at St. Ann's Warehouse.

Sitting in Shakespeare and Company's cafe area before the final workshop of the play, a highly animated Roosen tucks her feet up onto her chair and leans forward intently as she speaks.

"In the book I did of the monologues," Roosen explains, "I wrote a sentence by the Austrian playwright Peter Handke that says, 'The strange woman was so beautiful that I recognized her.' I love the contradiction in this." Roosen springs up from her seat and gesticulates emphatically to punctuate her points. "I thought, yeah, that's what's living in my heart. There is something in people where what is strange you reject, and what is familiar you open the door for immediately. And so what I try to communicate is that when you are curious and interested and not so judgmental, you can see beyond the burka, and see something else which is beautiful in the [Muslim] world."

While audiences may learn about the sexual and cultural identities of Muslim women through watching "The Veiled Monologues," the play's performers say they have discovered much about themselves through sharing the stories.

"We talk so much together about how it is to be a woman in our cultures, Islamic and Christian," says Oya Campelle, who was raised in Istanbul but moved to Holland 30 years ago at the age of 21 to marry a Dutch man. "We discovered that we have so much in common, as women, with each other. And taking the play to America, we've had women come up to us and say, 'I've had similar experiences, I've also had problems in my culture with some of these things, like virginity.' I've also learned how to speak openly about my own sexuality and my sensuality."

Nazmiye Oral is also of Turkish descent but was born and raised in Holland. Like Campelle, she married a Dutch man, but she found herself in the midst of a divorce in her early 30s, about the same time she became involved with "The Veiled Monologues." With Roosen's encouragement, Oral wrote the play's final monologue, "My Golden Sea," about trying to reignite the sensual spark in her relationship - a monologue she performs herself.

"Emotionally it was one of the hardest ones for me to get across," she says, "because writing about something is vulnerable, but with acting you have to show, you have to give, you have to be, which is even more vulnerable."

In presenting her monologue and others, Oral says she rediscovered her capacity for giving, which felt inaccessible to her in the aftermath of her divorce.

"Doing 'The Veiled Monologues,' " I learned that I had a big desire to give - because I think that's one of the beautiful things about humanity, to be able to give. What I'm learning now is to receive, which is almost as important as giving," she says. "You get a lot from the audience. It's nice to realize that everybody's going through the same things. We all know the feelings of inadequacy, longing for love and not having it, not knowing how to be a woman, losing your man - whatever. We all have questions and fears. We're human, and we want to exchange."