A SPECIAL performance will be held in Pembrokeshire next month.

Vision Theatre Company is joining forces with Action for Children’s Women and Girls Together Service to perform The Vagina Monologues.

The Vagina Monologues is directed by Terri Harrison and is seen as the cornerstone of the V-Day – which promotes awareness of violence against women – campaign.

It is a critically acclaimed, bittersweet, female-led production which comprises various personal monologues read by a wide range of women.

Initially, Eve Ensler – the original playwright – performed every monologue herself, but over the years, it has become a range of women performing each monologue, with famous names including Glenn Close, Sally Lindsay, Lesley Joseph, Goldie Hawn, Joanna Page, Hayley Mills and Jessie Wallace.

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The monologues cover a number of topics including sex, sex work, body image, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation and birth, with a recurring theme being female empowerment.

Each year, a new monologue is added to highlight a current issue affecting women across the world. In 2003, Under the Burqa was added, talking about the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and the following year a monologue called They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy… Or So They Tried was added, inspired by a group of women whose gender identity differed to what was assigned at birth.

Ms Harrison said: “To be directing and performing this unique and powerful piece of theatre is really quite exciting.

“It goes without saying that each cast member is also feeling empowered and privileged to be given this opportunity.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever been involved in and has such a strong message.

“It is a production made up of varying monologues that have been written as a result of interviews with real women expressing their real experiences of ‘down there.’ They way they are told will hopefully have the audiences laughing and crying, but sometimes shocked.

“The clue is in the title The Vagina Monologues as to the main subject matter, for which you will hear many common names, pet names and some not-so-well-known names too!”

Every V-Day, local benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues are staged across the world to raise funds for local groups, shelters and crisis centres working to end violence against women.

At the end of the Vision Theatre Company’s performances, there will be a bucket collection for Action for Children’s Women and Girls Together Service.

The show will be running at Boulevard Theatre, Milford Haven from February 16-18. Tickets are available from www.visionartswales.com