07.31.07 9:58 AM CDT
• Sex
• Rocky Rakovic
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours” is the slogan for the new play My First Time. Performed in the minimalist style of The Vagina Monologues, the performance features two actors and two actresses on stage reciting excerpts from more than 40,000 tales of lost viginity submitted by users on MyFirstTime.com.Notable stories included quotes like:
“I remember my first sexual experience. I was alone at the time!” (Story #6509)
“I still have the Metallica shirt he wore that night.” (Story #23960)
“File mine under clumsy and awkward!” (Story #4294)
“As I recall, I was pretty good at it. No really!” (Story #143)
Our summer interns Sarah Euler and Lynsey Gilchrist went to the New World Stages on West 49h Street in Manhattan last week for a press preview of the show.
Lynsey: I was kind of skeptical. I’m usually not into the whole four-people-sitting-around-talking thing, but I was actually really impressed.
Sarah: I didn’t know what to expect when I heard about the show. I thought the actors would just be reading funny stories from the website. While many of the stories were amusing (What lasted longer, your first time, or the commercial that was playing on TV at the time?), they included some that were sad. The variety of stories and emotions made the play more entertaining. The comedic timing of those funny stories was perfect for each situation. The audience would be silent after upsetting stories, but then be laughing again only minutes later.
L: Especially when the actors started reading quotes from the surveys everyone in the audience filled out (What would you tell your first if they were standing in front of you?: That she still turns me on after 20 years every time I hold her hand). That was the best part, and it makes every show different—although I did feel kind of bad for whoever had to sit back stage and tally up the surveys so fast.
S: I liked that the stories were all different and we weren’t hearing the same ones we’ve heard before. I was afraid that some of the stories would be overkill, but the variety kept me wanting more.
L: I agree, and I was surprised by how balanced the stories were. You had submissions by everyone from priests to real-life 40-year-old virgins to people who lost it when they were 12 and even story #1853 about a man in his university radio station during World War II.
S: There were a few stories that did not seem too out of the ordinary, but there were a few that I was shocked by. Some almost seemed unreal. At one point, I even heard some audience members gasp during a story about rape—and interestingly, a can of Coke. But they did a good job balancing those stories with some funny ones. The mood changes throughout kept my attention and interest.
L: Overall I really liked it. I thought a lot of stories would be read just for shock value, but the submissions they chose all had good messages.
S: The show definitely has more to it than just being funny. Part of the proceeds go to Sex Etc., a sex ed program.
My First Time is performed at the New World Stages every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.
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Comments on this entry:
Sounds interesting but nothing for me in the "Nookie White way" department has yet to top J. Eric Cook's "The Vagina Project."
One grown man's look at all the womb worshiping minimalism that has hit the stage in recent years.