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1977 Fefu and Her Friends
First Published: Wordplays 1, (New York: PAJ Publications, 1980).
Synopsis
This three part play begins at noon on a spring day in 1935 when in the New England home of Fefu, and her husband Phillip, eight women meet to rehearse a theatre education project. The play ends in the evening of the same day with the death of one of the women.
Part 1 takes place in a living room whilst outside in the garden - and remaining unseen throughout the play - is Phillip. Fefu tells Cindy and Christina that he has told her that she reminds him that women are 'loathsome'. She also tells them that she occasionally shoots blanks from a rifle at Phillip in the garden and he falls down; that this is a shared game which he might one day change by replacing the blanks with live ammunition. By the close of Part 1 all the women have arrived.
Part 11 takes place in the afternoon and has four scenes:
In the garden Fefu speaks of her suffering to Emma;
In the study Christina, Cindy and Fefu discuss Christina's unhappiness and Cindy shares her troubling dream;
In a bedroom Julia, a wheelchair user following a mysterious hunting accident, speaks of her self-hatred and has hallucinations where she is tortured;
In the kitchen where Paula, Cecilia, Sue and Fefu attempt to reach increased understanding of themselves and Cecilia and Paula discuss their failed intimate relationship.
Part 111 is in the living room at evening-time. The eight women rehearse their education project. Paula's speech has the particularly Fornesian title 'Art as a Tool for Learning' and Emma's contribution is from 'The Science of Educational Dramatics' by Emma Sheridan Fry. As they rehearse, they voice their idealistic hopes, their longing for a sense of community, but amongst their affection and humour deep tensions exist. Fefu again shoots the rifle outside into the garden, but this time it is Julia's enigmatic death inside the living room which follows the shot and closes the play.
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When first written as performed in a SoHo loft Fornes took advantage of the rooms in the loft space to innovatively divide the audience into four groups for Part 11. Each group moved between the four sets to watch at close hand the simultaneously performed scenes until each group had seen all four scenes. The audience then came together again for Part 111. Fornes has since re-written Fefu so that it can be more readily performed in conventional theatre spaces.
Fornes directed this (12th - 15th May, 19th - 22nd May) when it premiered at the Relativity Media Lab, 648 Broadway with New York Theatre Strategy, NYC. Set Design by Linda Conaway, Lighting Design by Candice Dunn and Costume Design by Lana Fritz. Cast: Sue - Janet Biehl, Cindy - Gwendoly Brown, Paula - Connie LoCurto Cicone, Julia - Margaret Harrington, Christina - Carolyn Hearn, Emma - Gordana Rashovich, Fefu - Rebecca Schull, Cecilia - Joan Voukides. Fornes was awarded an OBIE for Playwriting.
Fornes directed it again in 1978 (6th January-5th May) with the American Place Theatre, 111 West 42nd Street, NYC. The Set Design was by Kert Lundell and Nancy Tobias, Costume Design by Theo Barnes and Lighting Design by Edward M. Greenberg. Cast: Fefu - Rebecca Schull, Cindy - Dorothy Lyman, Christina - Elizabeth Perry, Julia - Margaret Harrington, Emma - Gordana Rashovich, Paula - Connie LoCurto, Sue - Arleigh Richards, Cecilia - Judith Roberts.
In 1979 Fornes directed it at the Padua Hills Festival, Los Angeles, California and also at the University of Kenosha, Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1979 she also directed it at Pasadena Playhouse, Pasadena, California. Fornes did not direct it again until productions in 1986 and 1987 at At The Foot of the Mountain, Minneapolis. In 1990 Fornes directed Fefu at New City Theatre, Seattle, Washington, where in 1993 she would return to direct Enter The Night. In the summer of 1999 Fornes again directed Fefu at Santa Fe Stages, Santa Fe, New Mexico when Donald Eastman was the Set Designer.
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