Fay­ola K J Fras­er

A 45-year ca­reer spent in the spot­light on stage has not dulled Ce­cil­ia Salazar’s shine in the slight­est.

Salazar has not on­ly tak­en up yet an­oth­er star­ring role in Eve En­sler’s “The Vagi­na Mono­logues,” pre­sent­ed by the Pros­ece­ni­um The­atre Com­pa­ny from Sep­tem­ber 6 to Sep­tem­ber 8, but is al­so, for the first time, a named co-di­rec­tor in the pro­duc­tion.

“At 15, I was in CIC’s pro­duc­tion of Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap, and that was when I de­cid­ed that this was ex­act­ly what I want­ed to do.”

Af­ter sec­ondary school, she pur­sued a The­atre Arts de­gree in Cana­da at Brock Uni­ver­si­ty, St Catharine’s, where she was ex­posed to the broad spec­trum of as­pects of the­atre, such as act­ing, di­rect­ing and stage man­age­ment.

Al­though act­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties were plen­ti­ful in Cana­da, Salazar felt that the avail­abil­i­ty of parts for her based on her pro­file and ac­cent was lim­it­ed. She re­turned to T&T “to find out where I fit in this place and this world.” In 1989 she au­di­tioned for a pro­duc­tion of “As Is” by the Bagasse Com­pa­ny. Sub­se­quent­ly, she was of­fered the lead in a play called “Ex­trem­i­ties”. She de­scribed both as “im­por­tant to raise so­cial con­scious­ness on var­i­ous is­sues and good the­atre.”

Over the many years on stage, Salazar has per­formed in pro­duc­tions of Derek Wal­cott, Ray­mond Choo Kong, and Tony Hall and has main­tained a com­mit­ment to art with a mes­sage.

Per­ceiv­ing her place in this world as a ves­sel for de­liv­er­ing so­cio­cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and po­lit­i­cal mes­sages in a for­mat of en­ter­tain­ment, she has cer­tain­ly made a name for her­self in the lo­cal per­form­ing in­dus­try.

This year, she has evolved in her cre­ative ca­pac­i­ty, first­ly by tak­ing her first singing role in the pro­duc­tion of Mam­ma Mia and her first co-di­rect­ing role in The Vagi­na Mono­logues.

More specif­i­cal­ly, this is her first ti­tled co-di­rect­ing role, as she laughs that “the ti­tle al­lows me to open my mouth … but I was do­ing that in oth­er plays with­out the ti­tle any­way and would get in trou­ble!”

Her role in The Vagi­na Mono­logues is an op­por­tu­ni­ty that has come full cir­cle, as the first time it was per­formed in 2004, Salazar was asked to take on a role, “but I didn’t feel able and emo­tion­al­ly pre­pared to do it.”

How­ev­er, now at 60, she has nev­er felt more pow­er­ful and se­cure in her abil­i­ty to delve in­to the char­ac­ters. “The Vagi­na Mono­logues,” writ­ten by Eve En­sler in 1996, is a ground­break­ing episod­ic play that delves in­to the com­plex­i­ties of fe­male sex­u­al­i­ty and the so­cial stig­mas sur­round­ing it.

Based on in­ter­views with over 200 women, the play presents a se­ries of mono­logues that ex­plore top­ics such as con­sen­su­al and non­con­sen­su­al sex­u­al ex­pe­ri­ences, body im­age, gen­i­tal mu­ti­la­tion, men­stru­a­tion, and more.

Each mono­logue is a pow­er­ful nar­ra­tive that gives voice to women’s di­verse ex­pe­ri­ences and chal­lenges so­ci­etal taboos. The play has not on­ly been per­formed world­wide but al­so in­spired the cre­ation of V-Day, a glob­al move­ment to end vi­o­lence against women.

Cel­e­brat­ed for its raw hon­esty and emo­tion­al depth, “The Vagi­na Mono­logues” re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant piece of po­lit­i­cal the­atre. Salazar thinks that the play is piv­otal in not on­ly bring­ing women’s is­sues to the fore but un­rav­el­ling the taboos sur­round­ing women’s bod­ies.

“Even now when I say the word vagi­na, peo­ple re­coil, and our moth­ers and grand­moth­ers call it by any oth­er name but its giv­en name,” she says.

It is this re­luc­tance jux­ta­posed with the rapid and steady ad­vance­ment of women that has made this play con­tin­u­ous­ly rel­e­vant in to­day’s con­text. It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate women’s voic­es, telling sto­ries of birth, death, rape, joy and sor­row that make it re­lat­able for every woman.

Tout­ed as one of the best ac­tress­es pro­duced by this coun­try, Salazar, who re­cent­ly turned 60 on Au­gust 6, cel­e­brat­ed her life­time of plays in her one-woman show “I’m Every Woman” ear­li­er this year.

Dur­ing the pro­duc­tion, she seam­less­ly switched be­tween char­ac­ters that she has played in the past, from Miss Miles from The Woman of the World, Anil­da Pe­na from the TV soap West­wood Park, Queen Ma­mala from The 3Canal Show, Cleothil­da from Earl Lovelace’s The Drag­on Can Dance, Is­abel­la in the late Tony Hall’s The Jok­er of Seville, and Lizzie from Mary Could Dance, among oth­ers.

As an es­tab­lished ac­tress who has graced many a stage, her ad­vice to younger women in the the­atre in­dus­try is to “keep train­ing, keep learn­ing, take any op­por­tu­ni­ty to take a course or join a work­shop.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that from an out­side per­spec­tive, the the­atre in­dus­try can seem “some­what cliquey,” she in­di­cates that there is al­ways room for more young tal­ent and there is a sig­nif­i­cant need to build the in­dus­try. Her con­tri­bu­tion to that build­ing is still in its con­cep­tu­al stages, but she hopes to soon start giv­ing act­ing, the­atre and dra­ma class­es for young peo­ple.

With her wealth of in­cred­i­ble ex­pe­ri­ence on the stage, she con­tin­ues to push the per­form­ing arts for­ward in T&T, mak­ing art and en­ter­tain­ing the pub­lic.

The Vagi­na Mono­logues will be per­formed from Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 6 to Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 8 at the Na­pari­ma Bowl.