Sock & Buskin’s recent charity performance of Eve Ensler’s The Good Body—benefiting Centre Safe—was a great performance of a generally powerful play about the psychological and physical difficulties women experience in their own bodies. Stephanie Whitesell’s directorial debut was a triumph, and the performers were each amazing.

Ensler’s most famous play is almost without a doubt The Vagina Monologues, but The Good Body expands the focus to deal with women’s general insecurities about their bodies—particularly as far as weight/stomachs are concerned, but also dealing with other common “trouble” areas like breasts, thighs/butts, and, yes, vaginas. Eve (the character, who may or may not genuinely reflect the feelings and experiences of the author—though the character seems at least relatively autobiographical) is the thread that holds the play together, as her experiences quilt together monologues by a number of other women, discussing their own experiences. These experiences are almost universally either negative or complex, but leaning towards the negative. There’s one important exception that I’ll discuss in the next paragraph. The play does deal with sexual violence, as well as surgery and other issues that may be difficult for some audience members. But overall, it is an extremely powerful exploration of the negative affect often encoded in women’s experiences of their own bodies as “not good enough.” (And, to be fair, men experience similar anxieties, though often not as pronouncedly as women. And this is to say nothing of trans people, or LGBT people more generally, whose bodies are significantly policed in different but related ways).

The one major issue I have with Ensler’s play is that the only characters we meet who are happy with their bodies are from the Global South, and the only characters we meet from the Global South are happy with their bodies. Eve meets a woman in East Africa (Kenya, if I remember correctly) who says she loves her body because it’s hers. And she meets a woman from India who is proud of being fat and who goes to the gym not to become thin but simply to get more energy. By contrast, all of the women from the US and Europe (i.e., the Global North) are discontented with their bodies, often seeking to alter them through surgery, excessive workouts, starvation diets, etc. This strikes me as a problematic form of orientalism, in which “wisdom” or the “truth” is vested in the ethnic Other, who is perceived as somehow more wise, intuitive, aligned with nature, etc. It’s a problematic trope because it exoticizes people from the Global South.

That being said, the performance by the Sock & Buskin cast was excellent. The role of Eve was largely split between Sandy Adams and Veronica Rosenberger, with Adams playing the more active part and Rosenberger generally serving the narrator function. Whenever Eve needed to interact with someone or perform a physical activity like working out, Adams generally played that role—even if Rosenberger was speaking. This pairing worked really well, particularly since Adams was seated stage left and Rosenberger stage right, so the two women bookended the other cast members.

In the middle seat was Jessica Karp, who played a large number of parts, and did a wonderful job bringing to each character her own distinct personality, style, and voice. Her depiction of Helen Gurley Brown (editor of Cosmo) was quite different from her performance of the Puerto Rican woman embarrassed by her “spread,” and the Kenyan anti-female genital mutilation activist who was happy with her body. Karp did a great job showing each part she played as a different person, each fully developed and interesting in her own right.

Playing a smaller number of parts, but having one major monologue was Michelle Rodino-Colocino. While she did play multiple roles, they were generally smaller roles, apart from the lengthy monologue by Eve’s Italian friend who had an ambivalent relationship with her breasts. This is a complex, difficult monologue, with contradictory emotions, sexual abuse (which the character doesn’t necessarily seem to register as sexual abuse), and major emotional impact. And Rodino-Colocino brought those challenging emotions to the forefront effectively.

The final performer was Jackie Gianico, who played several speaking roles, but also did an incredible job performing silent roles—something I’m always impressed by. With her speaking roles, Gianico was extremely funny, especially as the rebellions “fat girl” in the health spa/“fat camp.” But Gianico also often supported the monologues of other characters through mime or silent performance. For instance, during Karp’s monologue as Helen, Gianico was the model for a Cosmo Christmas shoot, and she struck various modeling poses wearing a Santa jacket. But when Helen offers Eve edamame, Gianico’s model put out her hand to get some as well. Helen gave her a single piece of edamame, which Gianico then spent the remainder of Helen’s monologue slowly eating in tiny, tiny bites. I find the stage business of those who aren’t the center of attention to be a really fascinating component of theatre, and Gianico did this to perfection.