Eve Ensler’s
Off Broadway play generated quite a bit of press in
New York last year when it was revealed that it would feature actress
Donna Hanover, estranged wife of Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani. At the time, Hanover still lived with Giuliani and their children at the mayor’s residence,
Gracie Mansion, but they had not been much of a couple for a long time. The mayor had announced that he was in a relationship with a woman named
Judith Nathan, a pharmaceutical sales rep.
That the mayor’s wife, estranged or not, was in an off Broadway play was no big deal, but the titillating title of the work set the press abuzz. While the mayor was off at a
New York Yankees playoff game last October, the press covered her debut at the
Westside Theater, alongside actresses
Robin Givens and
Susie Essman.
In an interesting plot twist, the playwright, Eve Ensler, is a friend and public supporter of
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Giuliani’s opponent in the New York
Senate race before he withdrew due to
prostate cancer.
Oh, and of course, there is a
web site: http://www.vaginamonologues.com
9/5: The
Albany Times Union has become the first
newspaper in the US to refuse to run an ad for the play. The same newspaper also initally refused to run ads for the movie
Pecker upon its release, but later relented.