AFP | 8 feb
BEIJING : The award-winning and internationally acclaimed women's rights play "The Vagina Monologues" has been banned in China's most modern city, staff at the playhouse said Sunday.
"It was scheduled to open Thursday, but we received an order from above not to hold the performance," said an employee at the Shanghai Drama Center.
"They said it does not fit with China's national situation."
The performance would have been the first time the play is performed to the general public in China.
The Drama Center is the largest playhouse in the bustling metropolis of Shanghai which is considered to be more liberal in its social attitudes, compared to the rest of China.
The banning of the play, however, is a reminder that although Chinese people, especially young people, are becoming more open about sex -- with teenage sex, premarital and extramarital sex on the rise as well as widespread prostitution - - government officials remain wary and conservative.
The employee at the Shanghai playhouse said authorities did not cite a specific reason for banning the play, but the word "vagina" is uttered numerous times throughout the performance.
"I never saw it, but people I know who have seen it said it's quite normal," said the employee, who declined to give her name.
"It's about us women. It's not vulgar. It's our reproductive organ. It's about our physical freedom."
Written by Eve Ensler, the play, based on several hundred interviews with women around the world, celebrates women's sexuality and focuses on the abuses women suffer around the world.
Women interviewed in the play come from all walks of life, including prostitutes, women raped in war.
The play has been performed in 110 cities over 39 countries since 1997, often to fight violence against women and raise awareness about women's rights.
"Female employees at our drama center who have watched it were very moved. Some of them cried," said the employee.
A performance of the play is also scheduled to be given in Beijing on February 14 at the Today Art Gallery.
A woman helping to sell tickets said on Sunday that they had not been ordered to cancel the play, as far as she knew.
"I haven't heard of any problems," said the woman, surnamed Cai.
Directors and organisers of the Beijing and Shanghai performances could not immediately be reached for comment.
"Vagina Monologues" was first performed in English in China in 2002 to an audience of mainly expatriates at the American Club in Shanghai, Cai said.
The play was first performed in Chinese in December at the Guangdong Art Academy by faculty and students at the Guangzhou Zhongshan University.
The audience was mainly students from the university, Cai said.
Shanghai a few years ago banned the sexually explicit book "Shanghai Baby," in which the author, a Shanghai woman, shared her sexual adventures in the city.
China Central Television officials meanwhile are facing obstables trying to broadcast the popular American sitcom "Friends" in China, because sex is mentioned too many times, officials said. - AFP
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