Playwright explores body image

While few middle-aged women would bare their stomach to an auditorium full of people, Vagina Monologues creator Eve Ensler did just that last night.

Ensler said that most people are extremely self-conscious about their body during a showing of her new play, The Good Body, at the Annenberg Center.

She burst on stage, actively engaging the audience from the very beginning.

With her work, Ensler hoped to force audience members to think about their own bodies.

Running through the play is the the idea of "being good," looking like the ideal standard of beauty in American society.

She took the audience into her inner world of self-doubt by literally revealing her less-than-flat stomach -- the body part she is most insecure about.

The play follows Ensler on her quest to conquer her physical flaws.

Along the way, she meets other women dealing with the same body-image issues, who offer her advice.

She finds the women in places from fat camp to Beverly Hills to Italy, Africa and in India.

Many of the characters are based on women she has met in real life who have shared the experiences of hating their own bodies.

Ensler acts out all of the characters on her own, using only lights, minor props and the range of her own voice, which jumps from one accent to the next.

A question-and-answer session followed the show. Attendees took advantage of the opportunity to get at some of the pressing social issues the play addressed.

Questions ranged from how the same issues apply to men to how much a woman's body image can keep her from "true liberation."

One attendee asked Ensler if she had any plans to run for president.

She laughed and said no.

Ensler summed up her play by urging attendees to "stop fixing your bodies and start fixing the world."

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