Ensler takes most of night to find her 'Good Body'

Mar. 3--As her material reveals and as she proudly declaims from the stage, Eve Ensler is a radical feminist. But the woman who first coupled the word "Vagina" with the seemingly incongruous "Monologues" also is a populist entertainer with an eye for the quirkily comic and a core audience of smart young women. A good portion of Wednesday night's Skokie audience at Ensler's touring Broadway show, "The Good Body," left the theater on school buses.

Whatever holes one might pick in "The Good Body"--which, for a variety of reasons, is not the equal of "The Vagina Monologues"--Ensler is still a remarkable phenomenon.

There have never exactly been loads of fun-loving radical feminist monologists who can fill a big theater with young paying customers (and I don't mean paying tuition). But in the current era, it takes some brain racking to think of anyone else doing anything quite like Ensler. She's a countercultural consciousness-raiser, an empowering figure, a truth-teller, and also the creator of a recognizable international brand of which the late, great Spalding Gray could only dream. Thanks to Ensler, women now talk vagina in all kinds of languages.

Ensler has run with her hit for a decade or more. Good for her. It was a brilliantly conceived work--shocking but warm, political but compassionate, and dazzlingly original. In "The Good Body," which had a short Broadway run at the end of 2004, Ensler turns her attention to the rest of the female body and makes the 85-minute case that the global female obsession with nipping, tucking, cutting, covering, sucking, tightening (and all the other manifestations of not being satisfied with what you got for no charge) serves mainly to keep women distracted from what really matters in the geo-political landscape.

Her thesis is that it doesn't matter if you starve yourself, or overeat, or hit the knife. If you can't see past your body, you vanish anyway. This is a compelling point, shrewdly drawn. And in the best section of the piece, Ensler offers a snapshot of how Botox (or a government job) can act like corporeal Super Glue for a woman, ensuring that no anger is visible to the outside world.

So why does "The Good Body" not fully satisfy? It's partly because its personal focus--a quest wherein Ensler tries to love her own self, a familiar trope in performance art--doesn't seem as worthy or as fresh as giving voice to the aspirations of a diverse array of women. It's partly because the thematic linkages happen too late in the show. But the main problem is that critiquing, say, liposuction or genital reconstructive surgery, especially in Beverly Hills, has long been the province of stand-up comedians like Joan Rivers.

Even though Ensler effectively voices a wide array of women--from Isabella Rossellini to a kind soul wanting to change her body for her husband--and even though she takes the political leap that Rivers and her ilk always resisted, much of this uneven show goes after worn targets. And when Ensler finally finds true wisdom on the body in Africa and India, it feels well-meant and accurate, sure, but also the kind of pure, folkloric-wisdom stereotype familiar to anyone who has spent time communing with solo performers.

None of that will matter much to Ensler's fans. Fair enough. She's well-worth seeing in person, and her show eventually comes to life toward the end, when she belatedly hits her stride.

"Our body is our country," she imparts to her devotees. It's a timely reminder for the young that the personal is the most political thing of all.

"The Good Body"

Where: North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie

When: Through Sunday.

Phone: 847-673-6300

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