Dramatic turn for Salt Lake official

The last dramatic role Salt Lake City Councilwoman Nancy Saxton held was the second lead in her high school's production of "Annie Get Your Gun."

Saxton, who is 51, soon can add a footnote to her performance credits for her part in "The Vagina Monologues" at the University of Utah on Friday. She'll read as a 72-year-old character from New York who enters therapy for the first time near the end of her life.

The play made a splash when it debuted 10 years ago for its frank discussion of female anatomy, attitudes and abuse. Saxton is among the performers who will read the monologues; former state Rep. Alicia Suazo, the singing trio Saliva Sisters and university professors and students will also read portions.

Some of the monologues include profanity, including rough slang for female genitalia, but Saxton said she's not convinced that word or any other has meaning she doesn't give it.

"If somebody came up and (said), 'You bloody idiot,' if you're American, it doesn't mean anything to us. If you're English, you would be really incensed by it," Saxton said. "I think a lot of it is dependent on how you take it, and most of the time, it doesn't bother me."

As she read the play for the first time, Saxton said she laughed more than gasped.

"There may be other parts that I'm glad are not my parts — parts of the play — so that's kind of how I have to judge it," she said. "I don't recommend that you go out and run through the streets or anything."

Proceeds from the play will raise money for the Women's Resource Center at the university, the YWCA battered women's shelter and other programs that try to stop domestic violence against women, said Babs De Lay, the producer. Over the past five years, the play has raised more than $250,000 for Utah charities, she said.

The university is staging the play as part of an international V-day movement, which allows groups to perform the play without paying for the rights as long as proceeds go to women's charities and the performance falls sometime in February. Other productions throughout the country have included prominent community women, celebrities and the play's author, Eve Ensler.

"The whole issue is that we're probably not all that comfortable with our bodies as women — a lot of that's a cultural thing — and there's nothing wrong with our bodies," Saxton said. "This is the kind of discussion that we probably should have in a loving, caring kind of experience or environment."

---

E-mail: kswinyard@desnews.com