WILD: Feminist trades Sex for the Environment

Jane Fonda

Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda took the microphone at New York’s Edition Hotel balcony on June 9 at an invite-only promotional event of the new project of feminist Eve Ensler. Now called simply “V”, the activist is famously known for the provocative late-1990s play The Vagina Monologues, that has riveted audiences from off-Broadway theatres to college campuses, with diverse people reading monologues about experiences of women of all ages, sexualities and races about sex – from body image, menstruation and love to prostitution, genital mutilation, incest and rape. I remember seeing it back then (with even famous male actors as readers), noting how many stories echoed callers’ accounts to my popular radio call-in advice show on Z100 Radio ruling the airwaves over that same time. 

The name “V” evokes her non-profit V-Day organization that funds programs to stop violence against women and girls. 

To the gathered group’s cheers, Fonda reminisced about first seeing V’s Vagina Monologues:  “Part of it was so profound and serious and some of it was hysterically funny. And I swear that it was during the laughter that I could feel my feminism moving from my head down into my body. During that play I became an embodied feminist.”   

The new play’s genre is an “Eco-fable,” which can be described as ecological morality with supernatural elements of apocalyptic fiction and fairy tales. I love that term, for several reasons:  I advocate at the United Nations about the impact of climate change on mental health; bring Ambassadors and psychologist-experts on climate stress to speak at my class at Columbia University Teachers College; and co-edited two volumes on Psychology and Environmental Protection.

“V” with Dr. Judy and good friend,
10-tme TONY award winning producer Jamie deRoy

WILD takes place in a town called Outskirtzia where local cash-poor farmers cave in to a cash for land-drilling rights deal by corporate raiders called Extractacals, much to the horror of the town’s teenagers.

Chorus of youth

The adults are indicted by the youth as evil destroyers of the planet, dramatized in the chorus of three young singers who belted out what decidedly can be a new theme song for youth demanding
eco-consciousness and environmental justice: 

 We want you to panic, we want you to act,
You stole our future, and we want it back.”

 The youth become so outraged by the adults’ ecological betrayal and immorality that they turn into different animals to save the earth.

I thought, this play should definitely by presented at the United Nations, since “Climate action” is Sustainable Development Goal 13 of the UN Agenda 2030, and it should even be an event at the upcoming COP28 UN climate change conference being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nov 30-Dec 12. One of my favorite UN Ambassadors, His Excellency Carlos Fuller from the Mission of Belize to the UN, who has spoken at my class on “Psychology and the UN” at Teachers College Columbia University, is a climate change expert, having been a meteorologist as his career! He should know about the play. A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus was glad to hear all of that, as it is their intention and dream to have the play exposed to a global audience
 and at the UN.

Soul singer Crystal Monee Hall with Dr. Judy and Jamie
 

At the event, soul singer Crystal Monee Hall belted out one of the songs from WILD.  Hall launched her career in the Broadway TONY award-winning musical RENT and sang with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart’s Band (which, as a Deadhead, captured my attention in addition to her powerful voice).  Interestingly, too, Hall is developing a play about Lincoln! I told her she must tour the Lincoln Museum in the Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, as I did (when seeing the brilliant play Shout Sister Shout - that MUST go to Broadway). I was fascinated to learn that: a woman was one of the four assassination conspirators; the pillow upon which Lincoln’s injured head lay was exchanged for a less bloodied one which had frightened children; and the friend Lincoln invited that fateful night ended up murdering his wife and then committing suicide.

American Theatre Wing Ian Weiss
 

Mingling, it was instant “love” to meet a fan of ”LovePhones” (my beloved call-in radio show, already vibrant at this event, as said above). Ian Weiss enthusiastically told me how much he learned as a teen from listening to my show (I know, and am proud of that!), as I delighted to hear, “See how your fans are now, in their 40s”!  Indeed, they are making it and doing fascinating things, like Ian being Senior Director of Digital Content Marketing and Strategy at American Theatre Wing – the very organization that will produce the TONY awards the next night!

Jamie deRoy and good friend Tony Marion of Willowrow Entertainment  

Credits for WILD go to V for the book, with music and lyrics by Justin Tranter (who co-wrote Bad Liar for Selena Gomez) and Caroline Pennell (a contestant on the 5^th season of The Voice), with contributions by V, Emmy award-winning songwriter Eren Cannata and Idina Menzel (the voice of Elsa in Disney’s Frozen).

WILD was developed at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), known for re-envisioning classics like Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie to developing plays like Life of Pi and Six now on Broadway and the COVID-casualty Jagged Little Pill about musician Alanis Morrisette (who was an “Honorary Love Doctor” on my LovePhones radio show). Harvard is a hotbed for rebellious theatre, I recall, long ago a Smith College student, producing an anti-war play in a church in Harvard Square with my to-be husband Edward and his buddies at Harvard Law School.  “War is hell,” was the crowning line. 

 Destruction of the earth is also hell.  WILD can wake us up

Postscript of this Day of Seeing Play in Development:
 

Reading of a new musical

Earlier that day, also at Jamie’s invitation, I attended a reading that introduced the original musical The Connector -- premiering off-Broadway at New York City’s MCC Theatre in January 2024. It’s about the media whirlwind centered around a newspaper (as a journalist, a subject matter that appeals to me), by composer, lyricist and playwright Jason Robert Brown, who’s riding a good wave since he won a 1999 TONY award for best musical score for the Broadway musical Parade which now won the 2023 TONY for best musical revival!  Friends gathered in an elegant apartment in the Dakota, famous for the tragic site of John Lennon’s assassination. As I waited outside the building, people were taking photos, which the doormen said happens constantly. P.S. Apparently, Yoko no longer lives there.  Congratulations to Jason;
may his new venture be as successful.

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