Yoni Ki Baat
Yoni Ki Baat is loosely based on Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. That fact alone might have some people stampeding for the exits, visions of vagina dentata where holiday sugarplum fairies recently danced.
And that would be too bad because this collection of very personal tales from Desi women is by turns funny, a little uncomfortable, touching, sexy and always riveting. It is both rich with cultural insight and highly entertaining.
The term Desi refers to people of South Asian heritage, hence the title of this collection of monologues, which features winning performances from four brave and beautiful local actors, Anita Chandwaney, Minita Gandhi, Fawzia Mirza and Mouza Makkar under the direction of Lavinia Jadhani.
Presented by the Rasaka Theatre Company and Premiere Theatre & Performance at the Strawdog Theatre, this version of the show features six pieces from previous productions and, importantly, six original pieces by Chicago-area writers. I particularly like the long finale piece by Mary Anne Mohanraj on the cognitive dissonance between being a writer of erotica and an erotically expressive person.
Working from an essentially bare stage, the four women talk about hetero sex, lesbian sex, solo sex, even some of the plan old ickiness of sex from the viewpoint of women between cultures. Steeped in traditions, their American experience has put them in that odd place of 'tween-ness that creates insight along with a feeling of not quite fitting in either place.
It is also a place that can give rise to great earthy humor, as in the story of one woman's fear that her traditional diet will make her female scent too strong for an American boyfriend. Or the young woman who must endure the embarrassing chatter of her aunts on the occasion of her first period. Or, the piece called The Sixth Pillar, which is about how attempts at cleanliness for the yoni can lead to a certain kind of godliness not usually prescribed for Muslim women.
One of the most poignant of these pieces is the one about the gung ho Desi lawyer who winds up in a deeply personal conversation with a woman at an out-sourced job center in the old country. They start out talking about solving a computer problem, but along the way it is revealed that the young woman on the line is pregnant with a child of the "wrong" sex and that because of family pressures not to have another girl she will have an abortion. The lawyer tries to talk her out of it, but in the end her protestations are useless, the weight of cultural expectations is too heavy.
So, yes, this show revolves around the female sex organ, but like the Eve Ensler original, is about so much more.
My hat is doffed to all involved for creating a transporting experience on no budget. I also like that a portion of all ticket sales go to Apna Ghar, Chicago's domestic-violence shelter catering to South Asian women. These yonis have heart.
"Yoni Ki Baat" is at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway, Thursdays to Sundays through February 1.Tickets are $20 ($10 for students and seniors). 312-777-1070 or www.strawdog.org