Generation Y Feminism at Teatro Luna

HowlRound: The week before Teatro Luna’s Generation Sex opened, a man in Isla Vista, California killed six people and injured thirteen others, leaving a chilling admission video spewing rage against women he felt “owed” him sex and admiration. In a particularly powerful moment of this newly devised play, a soundscape of his speech, intercut with Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” played against a projected list of frequently cited statistics of structural oppression and crimes against women including rates of sexual assault, domestic violence, street harassment, pay gaps, and parental leave policies. Through the course of this montage, which clearly linked this act of violence to larger cultural misogyny, ensemble members Kristiana Rae Colón, Ayssette Munoz, Elizabeth Nungaray, Deanalis Resto, Johannil Napoleon, and Abigail Vega removed their shoes and lined them up on the edge of the stage—a tribute to the women who do not survive this landscape.