By Sammy Ginsberg
Omg! Triggering and also so so important and necessary. On Wednesday I attended The Other Woman, a one-woman play written by and starring Faith Nagel and directed by Fiona Burrows, currently on at the Fringe at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre. It was – wow. So brave. I was there with our protagonist. This play was so believable, too believable. I was there with them. Afterwards, I had to go get Awan vegan ice cream to soothe myself.
The Other Woman is about a young woman who is 22 and has just graduated from Ohio State. She has an inernship at a luxury real estate agency because she dreamed of working at Selling Sunset. She has just had a breakup with her longterm boyfriend and high school sweetheart, the kind of longterm that they had a relationship funeral and invited all their friends. The details in this play were amazing! While talking about a tender and difficult topic, there was so much humor. She basically had no identity of her own because she had been playing the role of perfect girlfriend. Looking at my notes, I couldn’t find her name. Perhaps the character had a name, or maybe she didn’t intentionally because she could have been any woman. She had just begun to develop her own identity. She had no decorations in her own room. At one point she bragged about how she was the kind of girlfriend who swallows. I remember thinking that, too.
I especially loved when the character would break the third wall and speak directly to the audience, asking for advice or feedback and validation. It was so vulnerable and so realistic. That’s what we do at 22, when we are figuring out who we are and how much we are valued. We need other people to value us. We re so very vulnerable.
Faith’s character is trying to learn from her co-workers and seek the approval of her manager which leads to some difficult situations. Again, this show was so relatable. I kept having flashbacks to when I was 22 and 23. As I said, also triggering. Some lines cut me to the bone, I too had thought them. These untruths, these invasions, this internalized misogyny that is forced upon us having to live in a patriarchal society.
One line that hit me, “It was easier to let him fuck me than fight about it.” Oh I had been there, I had been there with her.
One of the messages of the play was connecting the protagonist’s experience with Monica Lewinsky, and the utter unjustice that took place as well as continues to take place. To this day, Bill Clinton has not acknowledged what happened or apologized.
She was a 22 year old intern and he was the president. The power dynamics at play in that relationship are so painfully obvious, and yet after this became public knowledge – his popularity rankings shot up to 73% while Monica was bullied and called a slut and a whore.
And he still has not acknowledge or apologized for this. Despite having daughters of his own, and probably granddaughters that are this age. I fact checked this, and he does! Does he regret it? Does he understand now?
I’ve read about how Bill Clinton was quite the ladies man in college. I read that in “the old days” there would be a line of boys who waited outside the library at night to safely walk the women home, and how Bill Clinton was always in that line.
This idea of a ladies man. This power and status that we give to men who have “hot girlfriends” who are way younger than them – Leo, Donald, Epstein.
We continue to like them even though by 21st feminist standards, a 22 year old girl is still a child. A lolita. Young and vulnerable. Feminism has been weaponized against us by modern day society. It has been used to make women think that to be a good feminist, to be equal to men, we must act like men do. We must value what men value.
I know because when I was in college and early 20s. That’s what I did. And I too was raped. I acted like I was a man, but I wasn’t a man. When my body language said no, when it was clear that I was too drunk, when I finally said no, it was disregarded, disrespected, ignored. In that moment, I realized that I was alone in a room with someone wayy bigger and stronger than I was, and that the safest thing to do was to let it happen to me.
This guy wasn’t my boss or some creapy older man, although there are many other stories where it has been. This guy was supposed to be safe. He was my friend’s friend’s roommate. He was supposed to be safe.
There were a lot of women in the audience, and I worry if they were triggered the way I was. I felt so sad at the end. We are still trapped in a man’s world. We are still trapped.
That’s how I felt at the end. I was so triggered
And then the play ended and Taylor Swift’s joyful anthem “22” burst over the speakers.
This is the trauma of being a woman. To have to sing an upbeat girly pop tune about your trauma. But the older you get, the harder it is to perform. The more the anger and resentment creaps in. The jealousy. To be young again, before the world put you in your place in the patriarchy, before you let it.
Absolutely brilliant play. I want my Dad and all of the men I know and the men in Los Angeles to go and see this show, or any woman who has ever been cheated on or who has ever slut shamed someone.
Please go see this play.
If you have had an experience like in The Other Woman or like me, please think about where you are in your healing journey. Are you needing to hear other stories like yours to feel validated and normalize what you experienced — then go. This play is for you.
If you are too raw, or not im a place to have those memories and feelings come up, then I’d skip this one. Just know that you are not alone and that one day with lots of support and love, you will heal waht happened to you and be able to have amazing sex again. It took three years, but I was able to overcome the fear. And so will you. So will you.
You will become so much stronger. They may able to have power over your body, but they can never have power over your heart and your mind. Those are yours, and as long as you learn to listen and strengthen those places, you will always be safe.
I was in awe of the acting, and felt inspired to take acting classes. The way she emboded the most traumatic and painful emotions, the ones I have been working hard to never relive again. She did. Over and over again. How real they felt.
I am grateful that Faith is strong and brave enough to tell this story so that more poeple can learn, this is not okay. You are so brave. You should be proud.
I wish I could bring this play to colleges and schools and workplaces and facilitate Q and A’s after to really allow people to learn why workplace harassment/assault is illegal instead of those dumb online courses.
Even I watch them at double speed while doing something else, and this is something that has deeply affected me and that I really believe policies and training educating and protecting people is vital.
I hope you will not look away when you feel uncomfortable. I hope you will sit with those feelings and reflect. It is only then that we can learn.
Definitely go see this show before it closes! Two more nights
Sunday June 22 and Saturday June 28th!
Get your tickets here!
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