Necessary Targets: A Story of Women and War

I was fortunate enough to see this play performed live, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was already an Eve Ensler fan, having performed myself in a college production of The Vagina Monologues, but I am also a harsh theatre critic, attending 8 or more professional productions a year (for the last 15 years) and often finding them lacking. Neccessary Targets is one of the best plays I have ever had the honor of finding myself engaged in. The characters are female archetypes we are all famillar with, and yet they each have their own unique stories. During the course of the play, they find themselves stomping bravely or furiously down paths they never even supposed were out there, hovering just off the beaten track...leaving the geographically familliar for the foreign, the psycholgically comforting for the disruptive, finding peace in sorrow, and joy in chaos. For anyone wishing to expand their understanding of how women in the global South or women in war-torn nations subsist psychologicaly--this is your play. Eve Ensler is a goddess. In this play, her creations range from an elderly woman who longs for her long-gone beloved cow, to a teenage mother, unwilling to acknowledge the loss of her newborn infant, from an uptight/urban therapist who needs to learn how to feel compassion and forget about wrinkle-free clothes, to a freedom-fighting hiking-boot-wearing all 'round adventurer with an intense insecurity complex. It's a must read and a must see.

My first read left me disappointed because I thought it was a flimsy account of war, but finally Necessary Targets began to grow on me. I think it's ingenious that Ensler tells the story from an American perspective. As an American woman, I've never spent a single day or night in the midst of a warzone--and bombs and shells are a minute portion of what Bosnian women endured. Melissa's distance and J.S.'s transformation make it very clear how removed we Americans can be from the attrocities of war. Ensler is right--we only think about the bombs, bloodshed, and battles. Because the media tends to ignore the drudgeries and aftermaths, we do as well. Maybe I thought at first that this play was missing the noisy, concrete aspects of war. But it's the abstract--the emotional and mental damage--that people need to consider. Ensler brings that aspect of war hauntingly close with this play.

I was introduced to Eve Ensler through "The Vagina Monologues." That book is one of the most moving and vital books I've read in a long time. I eagerly grabbed "Necessary Targets" thinking it would have the same emotional impact as one of her previous monologues about the horrible acts performed against women in war. I hate to admit it, but I was very disappointed in "Necessary Targets." Until the last 15 pages of the play, I was unable to really find a connection with any of the women portrayed. I tried again and again and even felt guilty for feeling nothing. I would still recommend this play for the overall message Ensler presents and the play's themes. It is educational and eye-opening concerning the horrors of war that no one likes to talk about. Please, also consider picking up a copy of "The Vagina Monologues," by far Ensler's best work to date. You won't regret it.

Eve Ensler's "Necessary Targets" is a thought-provoking play. In her introduction, Ensler notes that, in 1993, she traveled to the former Yugoslavia in order to interview female war refugees. This play evokes the lives of those displaced women.The play deals with two American women: Melissa, a writer and trauma counselor, and J.S., a psychiatrist. They travel to Bosnia and hold group sessions with several women, of various ages, who have become refugees as a result of the wall. Their conversations are at times tense, funny, or painful."Necessary Targets" is a compelling depiction of a cross-cultural encounter. Throughout the play there was, in my mind, a question: Are Melissa and J.S. helping these women, or merely exploiting them to further their own agendas? Also interesting is Ensler's exploration of perceptions of the U.S. and Americans held by people from other nations.In her introduction, Ensler notes, "When we think of war, we think of it as something that happens to men in fields or jungles." Thus, this play is a valuable window into the female world of war.