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Sydney Morning Herald

5 February 2002

Lawless liberation

Another feminist role? Lucy Lawless.

Lucy Lawless, the star of the television series Xena: Warrior Princess is now to star in the feminist stage play, The Vagina Monologues.

Lawless, 33, who is six months pregnant with her third child, will share the stage in the controversial play with Fiji-Indian comic star Madeleine Sami and actress Danielle Cormack.

Lawless told the Listener magazine out today that her time as Xena had left her mentally, physically and creatively spent.

"For six years, I gave it every ounce of everything I had. It wasn't just the acting, there was a lot of other baggage that came with it."

It's been a year since Xena ended filming and Lawless, who was born and raised in New Zealand, says she is ready for the play written by American Eve Eusler.

"I'm looking forward to it because, much as we think we're all modern, liberated women, we're really not when it comes to our own vaginas. I think it'll be a really useful thing to take the stigma away from our attitudes to our own bodies, especially the sacred vagina'."

Eusler interviewed 200 women and compiled their experiences into what she calls "poetry for the theatre".

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