Men, Approach with Caution! <em>These Girls</em> Bite

“Every time you hear the word vagina, drink!” commanded opening act, Mamie Gummer.  Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign

“Every time you hear the word vagina, drink!” commanded opening act, Mamie Gummer

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The audience, mainly female—go figure—responded with the obedient clinking, and subsequent sinking, of glasses that reverberated through Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. And vagina was indeed the theme of the evening at These Girls, Glamour’s night of monologues by young ladies they’ve deemed the new generation of female voices.

It quickly became apparent that for all involved (Olivia Wilde, Leandra Medine, Rashida Jones, Zosia Mamet, Aubrey Plaza and Lauren Miller), this was a chance to have a real heart-to-heart—you know, girl talk—so far from their usual introverted selves.

“Tonight, these girls can be who they uniquely are fan-fucking-tastic,” exclaimed Gloria Steinem.

It was refreshing, we suppose, though The Observer did feel a tinge of sympathy for the few men in the audience. 

“I’ve had my fair share of interesting menstrual cycles,” read Ari Graynor, whose reading of Leandra Medine’s monologue was largely, and explicitly, preoccupied with periods (of the menstrual kind, we figure the grammar was spot on).

One in particular, nearly cost Ms Medine her place at college. The fact that Ms Medine did not perform the monologue herself suggested just how appropriate the title, Over Sharing is Underrated, was.

The guys shuffled awkwardly in their seats.

“Guys are raging against the independent woman machine,” read actress and Harvard graduate Rashida Jones, the next act to grab the men by the balls. Cue the high pitched whooping from the females in the audience.

There were more gender-neutral monologues, however. Actress and comedienne Aubrey Plaza recalled how she had spent her life running in front of the great wave of the establishment in A Million Life Opportunities, Zero Job Opportunities. She spoke about her inability to hold down a job when she was younger due to her only applying to the ones that sounded “funny,” like being the judge of a dog contest. She’d never owned a dog in her life.

Lauren Miller, wife of Seth Rogen, recalled entries from her teenage diary—a diary of self-loathing—in Don’t Talk Down to Me, I’m on My Way Up.

“I’m fat and ugly and have pimples—I will never be happy,” she read, before an entry admitting she wanted to move to L.A. and marry a movie star. Success!

We are a little less hopeful for Olivia Wilde, who, in “The Fabulous Olivialand,” proclaimed that everyone will stay married for only seven happy years, at which time his or her children will be ferried off to boarding school. After Ms Wilde briefly touched on her marriage, and recent divorce, from Tao Ruspoli (they married at the tender age of nineteen on a school bus), we began to understand her logic that love is better kept short and sweet.

But such is life and Ms. Wilde gushed over her new beau, funnyman Jason Sudeikis, who was in the audience.

“Seven years is too short,” Ms. Wilde decided.

Garfunkel and Oates, the mismatched duo, entertained us between monologues with their hysterical take on dating, before Alexa Chung appeared on the decks as Amy Poehler shouted “Vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina!” and the audience downed their drinks once and for all.

Men, Approach with Caution! <em>These Girls</em> Bite