Calling Out Catcalls: Performance of ‘Dirty Talk’ Uses Students’ Stories

On stage, the women stand in a line, each reciting an all-too-familiar catcall.

“You better run fast, or I’m gonna catch you.”

“You married?”

“Girl, you poppin’ like popcorn.”

Then they speak in unison, their words overlapping as they walk forward, their voices rising to a crescendo.

For a week during interterm, seven students workshopped a 90-minute performance piece, Dirty Talk, written by Shaheen Vaaz ’94 and colleagues from the California-based World Kin Ensemble. They met on campus at the Hallie Flanagan Studio Theater as they wrote and rehearsed for a January performance, with each student adding her imprint.

“Smith was a home where I felt I grew artistically and intellectually, so it seemed a natural place to grow the piece with students who I knew would be incisive and curious and creative,” Vaaz said.

Everyone had a story. They all involved men making us feel uncomfortable.

A theater faculty member at California State University, Long Beach, Vaaz began framing the piece in response to the 2012 rape and murder of a woman on a bus in her native India. She interviewed students, professors and others to create monologues and ensemble pieces dealing with sexual harassment, ranging from those catcalls to an atmosphere of sexual hostility and assault on college campuses.

“We’re trying to reach the men in the audience,” Vaaz said. “I want people to talk about this.” And she could think of no better way to get them talking than with a style and attention-grabbing title similar to Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues.

Students spoke about their experiences as women traveling alone, descriptions of the first time they were catcalled and other topics, as Vaaz took down their answers on a dry-erase board in the Green Room.

“Everyone had a story. They all involved men making us feel uncomfortable,” said Ellen Gallos ’15, who is majoring in theatre and Spanish.

Some of those stories will find their way into the piece, which is scheduled to tour college campuses in California this spring, Vaaz said.

Kyle Kaplan ’15, who is majoring in the study of women and gender, said the workshop helped her reflect on her own experience in an abusive relationship.

Kaplan said what Vaaz is doing “is amazing for the people who participate in it. A lot of things get confirmed when you realize that what happened to you happens to other people.”

Smith students Ann Gill, Elizabeth Haas, Sylvia Kaplan, Darcy Bruce, Kyle Kaplan and Ellen Gallos perform ‘Dirty Talk’ by alumna Shaheen Vaaz.