The Palo Alto High School Feminist Club’s production of The Vagina Monologues opened Thursday as a highly anticipated, controversial performance. The sixteen-person cast, all female Paly students, performed an edited version of writer Eve Ensler’s original play in the Haymarket Theater on a stark, brightly lit stage.

The play opened with an introduction from director sophomore Brigid Hurn-Maloney. Last minute cast changes included Hurn-Maloney performing “Worried,” sophomore Emily Schickli in “Flood,” and sophomores Hilary Brennan-Marquez and Mia Lattanzi in “I was There in the Room.”

The monologues ranged in tone, from the spunky humor in “My Short Skirt” or “My Angry Vagina,” both performed by senior Amanda Weisner, to the dark seriousness in monologues that addressed domestic abuse, rape, and genital multination.

The performers, most underclassmen, tackled the mature material with a sense of seriousness that allowed the audience to forget the young age of the performers and focus on the characters.

A strong aspect of the play was the deliberate juxtaposition of horrifying stories with heartwarming, childish remembrances. In “My Vagina Was My Village” Schickli and Brennan-Marquez performed the parallel thought-processes of a girl who had been raped. Brennan-Marquez, dressed in a pink summer dress, recalled the past innocence of the women, while Schickli portrayed the present despair caused by the rape.

The play will close tomorrow night, but Hurn-Maloney hopes to get a chance to put on the production again next year.