Beijing too halts ‘Monologues’

The Chinese capital of Beijing has canceled a production of “The Vagina Monologues” just days after the show was called off in Shanghai, the play’s producers said Thursday.

Confusion over approvals needed and misunderstandings over the aim of sponsors to spread awareness of violence against women in China, rather than to promote sexual permissiveness, led culture authorities to ax it, the head of the gallery staging it said.

He said the biggest problem may have been the title of Eve Ensler’s work.

“I think that if, at the start, we didn’t call this play ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in Chinese, this regrettable matter would not have happened,” said Zhang Baoquan, chief executive of a real estate investment firm that owns the Beijing Today Gallery. “In the end, it reflects a cultural conflict. Perhaps the genitals have not been named before in such a straightforward and open manner in works of mass media and art in China.”