By Harry Haun
16 Nov 2004

The only other flickering of star power to be seen is from the New (but no less committed) Hollywood — Julia Stiles ("The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy"), who proudly crowed she just finished a London run of David Mamet's Oleanna with Aaron Eckhart and is currently shopping around for a possible stage project to do in New York, and Kerry Washington, who's getting some Oscar talk as Mrs. Ray Charles in "Ray" and will soon be seen on screen in "Fabulous Four" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Washington also played publicist for Shiva Rose McDermott, who, she says, is wonderful opposite David Moscow in a New York-set love story that just finished filming called "David and Lalya." On her own, McDermott says she has stage designs on A Doll's House in Los Angeles.

The latter's husband, Dylan ("The Practice," "The Grid") McDermott, lent his star presence to the proceedings because Ensler happens to be his former stepmother. In 1987, she was author of his Off-Broadway debut (at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on West 42nd), Scooncat. Some thought it a pretty sexual showcase coming from a parent — this from a woman who nine years later would make her name and fortune with The Vagina Monologues, a series of dramatized interviews that began in the basement of the Cornelia Street Cafe and quickly became a worldwide cottage industry and unifying call-to-action.

Peter Askin, the director of The Good Body, sees this sequel as going the same route as The Vagina Monologues, breaking a one-person show up into different parts so other actresses could share the wealth. "Eve's doing about 13 different characters, including herself," he says. "There is a plan — if this has a life and goes on — that we would bring three actresses in to do it. In some ways, it really lends itself to that. One actor could take Eve's role, and the other two actors could be different roles. It would become a play."

His next project is a new play by "American Pie" screenwriter Paul Weitz called Privilege. He'll put it into rehearsal in February for presentation at Second Stage Theatre. "It's about two young brothers, 12 and 15, whose father gets arrested for insider trading."

Isabella Rossellini and Cosmopolitan's Helen Gurley Brown, both characters in The Good Body, did not make the opening but are quite familiar with the project. "I read it to Helen before I did it," says Ensler, "and Isabella has seen it a few times already. She loves it."

In a bright and generally zippy 87 minutes, Ensler explores how women throughout the world feel about their bodies — ultimately, a matter of taking the good with the bad.

"I want us to get out of this idea of 'good' that is being fabricated by The Bush Administration," Ensler says. "This black-and-white consciousness — that there is good or evil — I find very frightening. I want audience to feel that good is full of everything. It's full of darkness. It's full of outrage. It's full of humor. It's full of sexuality. It's full of happiness. I want people to look at our low-esteem and see how it's impacted in our life — often in how we feel about our bodies. I want us to see how we can use that to begin to love ourselves. If we do that, we might actually serve the world and heal other people."