IVY FALLS - An amazing production was born when the group who had planned to do a performance of the "Vagina Monologues" in Second Life had their rights to do so taken away. When handed a lemon, they made lemonade, pink lemonade.

Dressed in various shades of pink symbolizing the nuance of women’s bodies and speaking in accents and dialects as diverse as the lives of women across the grid of Second Life experience, a group of most-talented writers and performers spoke from the depths of their experiences as women.

The production was flawless. Be it the gods of Second Life, the professional abilities of the producers or a combination of both, “In the Pink” was a smoothly performed theatrical event.

Second Life voice worked clear and just in case it didn’t, the text was “streamed” into chat in almost complete congruity to the words spoken. I have not been one who has ever had strong feelings about the introduction of voice capability into Second Life. 

Basically, I didn’t ever see a real need for it. Yesterday’s performance, however—my first experience with it working when it “needed” to work, reminded me of the spoken tongue’s power: intimacy and connectivity. Without live voice, “In the Pink” could not have "spoken”.

Theater depends on the suspension of disbelief. I have often wondered if that is part of Second Life’s lure to the people who sign in and stay. Are “we” more willing than others to immerse ourselves in a landscape (physical, social and emotional) that can simulate theater?   

If Second Life is part theater, then theatrical production on the grid is to borrow from Shakespeare, a play within a play. Second Life as theater takes theater a further step, where the play “is the thing”—constantly constructed and reconstructed, everything from script to prop.  

Good theater depends on how well it transfers reality from stage to human experience. “In the Pink” succeeds because the kaleidoscope of voices and their stories conveys what it means to be female in gender-constructed social contexts.     

Both the joy and sorrow of sexuality and the myriad of relationships and roles women play in life(s) found their voice in monologues written specifically for this production by the women who lent their talent to its fruition.