According to the playwright, one of the sources for Fefu and her Friends is a Mexican joke. Two men are attending a bullfight, and one says to the other, "Isn't she beautiful?" pointing to a woman standing on the other side of the arena. "Which one?" asks his friend. The first man takes his gun, shoots the beauty, and says, "The one who falls."

This sense of the witty, wry and slightly macabre carries itself into the chronicle, told by eight women, of a weekend retreat at the home of Stephanie (Fefu to her friends). Fefu and her husband play a game: she shoots at him, the gun (she thinks) always loaded with blanks, and he obligingly falls right down wherever he is. In the first draft of the play, Fefu explains that she and her husband began playing the game because of the joke, but in revisions that explanation was omitted.

As the women meet at Fefu's home, their entwined personal histories and mercurial moods move the audience through the piece. For Act II, the audience is literally moved as well: Act II consists of four scenes set in different rooms, played as the audience, divided into groups, moves from one to the next. This device confounds the usual expectations of a story told from beginning to middle to end, and compels the viewer to examine the play's climax in the light of perceptions cast in new slants.

 

view cast list and photos

ArtSavant contributor Lynn Trenning interviews Fornés

Fornés at Davidson College

Lynn Trenning's review of the production

CL's interview with Fornés

 

playwright Maria Irene Fornés

Maria Irene Fornés Playwright Maria Irene Fornés is a leading figure of the contemporary theater scene and the recipient of nine Obie Awards, one for Sustained Achievement in Theater. The 1999-2000 season at Signature Theatre Company in New York City was devoted to the Fornés oeuvre, and included the world premiere of her latest play Letters from Cuba. This production garnered her a 2000 Obie Award for her writing and direction. Ross Wetzsteon, the late theater critic for the Village Voice, called Fornés "one of the half-dozen most gifted playwrights in the American theater." Playwright Lanford Wilson says, "She's one of the very, very best.... Her work has no precedents, it isn't derived from anything. She's the most original of us all." Fornés is the author of more than two dozen works for the stage. Among her most celebrated plays are Promenade, The Successful Life of 3, Fefu and Her Friends, The Danube, Mud, The Conduct of Life, And What of the Night?, Abingdon Square, Enter the Night, The Summer in Gossensass, and Oscar and Bertha. She has received NEA awards, including a Distinguished Artists Award, Rockefeller Foundation grants, a Guggenheim grant, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a NY State Governor's Arts Award. Ms. Fornés is in residence at Davidson College in Davidson, NC, from January - May 2001 as the McGee Professor of Creative Writing. Along with teaching two courses in writing plays, Fornes will also finish writing and direct a small workshop production of a new work, based on Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and commissioned by the Acting Company of New York City. The project will be presented at Davidson in March, in conjunction with a guest lecture given by renowned theater scholar Jill Dolan, and will provide the theater department with the unique opportunity to break in an original work. For more information about the Davidson College production, please contact the Theatre Department at 704-894-2361 or visit the Davidson College site for the latest updates.

Chickspeare presented Maria Irene Fornés' Fefu and her Friends, January 11 - 27, 2001. Anne Lambert directed the show, which will be presented for 9 performances at 8:00 p.m., Thursday - Saturday evenings, January 11 - 27, 2001. Chickspeare performed at the Off-Tryon Theatre Company, 3143 Cullman Avenue (in the NoDa neighborhood, off 36th Street, between Tryon and Davidson Streets) in Charlotte. This show was co-sponsored by Creative Loafing. Call 704-370-0201 for more information, or email us at info@chickspeare.org.

Chickspeare hosted a reception in honor of Ms. Fornés on Friday, January 19, 2001, prior to the performance of Fefu and her Friends at Off-Tryon Theatre Company.

Fefu a Success Fefu and her Friends, which ran January 11-27, 2001, at OTTC, was a big success. 578 people -- including the playwright Maria Irene Fornés -- attended 9 performances. Thanks to our audience, and congratulations to all those involved in what Perry Tannebaum at Creative Loafing called 'a more unusual... and edgier... production than anything seen downtown in years.'

Chickspeare received a $3,500 Grant Chickspeare proudly announces a $3,500 grant from the Impact Fund, an initiative of the Foundation for the Carolinas. This grant helped to fund our production of Fefu and her Friends.