Were Theater Critics Good to Eve Ensler's Broadway Body?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "In her new performance piece, The Good Body, Ensler focuses on another body part: her stomach. It might seem like little more than navel-gazing, so to speak, but she turns it into an illuminating, entertaining look at women's unhealthy fixation on body image… While Ensler wrote the deeply personal show, Peter Askin deserves some of the credit for the production's assured tone and pacing."
Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "The Good Body is more forthrightly funny than the often somber Vagina Monologues. When she is not delivering monologues in the voices of her interview subjects as an actress, Ms. Ensler is, in truth, barely adequate to the task of differentiating these voices, she is relating her conflicted feelings about her appearance in segments bristling with wisecracks about watching Ab Roller infomercials while eating peanut M&M's, or praying for a parasite. She often sounds like an old-school female standup comic, a Joan Rivers or a Phyllis Diller, turning savage self-deprecation into entertainment. 'When my partner rubs my stomach I want to vomit.' But the stylish production, directed by Peter Askin, can't obscure the fact that Ms. Ensler's new material is less compelling the Vagina testimonials. The show is rich in pointed, amusing details, but truly fresh insights are in short supply."
Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "In The Good Body, Ensler has grabbed a subject of equal interest to men and women. In a series of beautifully observed sketched vignettes a few involving affectionate caricatures of real people, such as Helen Gurley Brown and Isabella Rossellini, she runs with it in a most engaging way--funny, shrewd and, best of all, humane… Ensler, who resembles a zaftig Louise Brooks, is a beautifully contained and stylish actress. As a writer, she has a gift for phrasemaking--'chubby-dunking' as a weight-challenged alternative to skinny-dipping--and a playwright's skill for evoking character."
Marilyn Stasio of Variety: "Once she delivers her hilarious opening riff on Ab-Blasters, fascistic trainers and fat farms, Ensler moves into darker territory, exploring the complex psychology of guilt and self-loathing behind a woman's perverse compulsion to remodel her body… Clearly, Ensler wants to inspire her audience with the lessons she has learned about a woman's right to live peacefully in her own imperfect body. But as the voices of these noble women get louder, they also grow shrill, and by the end of the evening the sermon on 'Loving Your Good Body' overwhelms the more bittersweet experience of living it and sharing it with the sisters."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "The actress, sporting a Louise Brooks bob and a billowy, sleeveless pants suit, takes the audience on a 90-minute journey through her own and other women's observations about their bodies. The stage setting, designer Robert Brill's mock fashion shoot set up complete with mannequins, suggests glamour. But it's glamour laden with a heavy dose of angst, anger and humor, particularly as Ensler tells it… Ensler may not be the most nuanced of actresses, but she has an appealing stage persona that lets her get away with only sketchy approximations of these commonsensical women."
Linda Winer of Newsday: "In The Good Body, the good-humored and preachy monologues that opened last night at the Booth Theatre, Ensler takes on Botox, liposuction, dieting and surgery that mutilates feet to fit in those grotesque pointy shoes… Peter Askin has directed her through a series of attractive scenes on Robert Brill's high-fashion satirical set, punctuated with amusing and horrifying video by Wendall K. Harrington. She re-creates Cosmo's Helen Gurley Brown, who apparently made all womanhood feel inadequate because her mother didn't think she was pretty. There is the Puerto Rican woman, terrified by her expanding butt. A Jewish woman in California has her vagina surgically tightened as a wistful gift to her husband. There are perhaps two too many stories of childhood sexual abuse, three too many scenes puffing on a treadmill, way too much blaming of parents. She doesn't get overly uplifting until the end, however, and her fantasy of a botulism-frozen smiling army of furious women is not merely a hoot. It just could be an inspiration."