Fefu And Her Friends Monologue
Eugene Hill
Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes was first produced at the Relativity Media Lab (part of the New York Theatre Strategy) on May 5, 1977, and was directed by Fornes herself. It was performed to a wider audience at the Off-Broadway venue, the American Place Theatre, on January 8, 1978. Fornes published the script of her short play in the winter 1978 edition of the Performing Arts Journal, or PAJ. PAJ Publications published the most recent edition of Fefu and Her Friends as a slim book in 1990.
Maria Irene Fornes was born on May 14, 1930 in Havana, Cuba, to Carlos Luis and Carmen Hismenia Fornes. In 1945, when Fornes was only fifteen, her father died. Later that same year, Fornes, her mother, and her sister immigrated to the United States. Settling in Manhattan, Fornes attended Catholic school but dropped out before graduating so that she could work. Fornes became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951.
As a young adult, Fornes wanted to be a painter and spent a lot of time in Greenwich Village and even a few years in Paris. While in Paris, she saw and was struck by the original production of Samuel Beckett's absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot. The themes in Beckett's play have echoed throughout Fornes work. When she returned to Greenwich Village in 1957, Fornes spent a few more years supporting herself as a custom textile designer before discovering her love of playwriting. Her first professionally produced production, The Widow, was staged in 1961. Fornes has gone on to write more than forty plays, directing many of them herself. In 1972, Fornes teamed up with other playwrights to create the New York Theatre Strategy, which opened in 1973. The New York Theatre Strategy was envisioned as a place where playwrights could test out their ideas. Fefu and Her Friends was originally staged there in 1977, using the theatre's office and costume shop as part of the set.
In the 1970s, Fornes became deeply involved in Hispanic theater through INTAR, the Hispanic American Arts Center in New York City, where she taught workshops for aspiring Hispanic playwrights. In the 1980s, some of Fornes's works were criticized as being too Hispanic, whereas her 2000 production, Letters from Cuba (based in part on correspondence with her only brother who remained in Cuba), was considered to be not Hispanic enough. Fornes is also a feminist playwright although some have criticized her work as not being feminist enough.
Hearing voices out on the lawn, Fefu picks up her gun and shoots at Phillip, who gamely falls down for a moment and pretends to be dead. It is a strange game between Phillip and his wife. Fefu leaves and Cindy tries to convince Christina that Fefu is not crazy although she has an odd marriage. Cindy assures Christina that the gun is only loaded with blanks. Rattled, Christina asserts, "One can die of fright, you know." They argue over putting the gun away; neither wants to touch it. Fefu returns just as Christina is about to toss a silk shawl over it but, embarrassed, Christina pretends to be dancing instead.
Fefu leaves to check the toilet and Cindy sings a song to soothe Christina. Julia arrives, wheelchair-bound. She was injured in a hunting accident but Cindy assures Christina that the bullet did not touch Julia. Emma, Paula, and Sue arrive soon thereafter. There is a happy reunion among friends while Christina is introduced around. They discuss lunch and the meeting/ rehearsal they will have later, then disperse to different areas of the house. Julia takes up Fefu's rifle, removing the remaining slug and smelling the barrel. She blacks out for a moment, then says, "She's hurting herself." Julia leaves to lay down and Cindy reloads the gun. Cecilia arrives and introduces herself to Cindy and Christina.
Fornes wrote and directed this middle part of the play to be performed in four parts simultaneously. The audience is divided into four groups and is moved to each location until they have seen all the scenes. They are reunited again for part 3.
Christina is sitting at the desk in the study reading a French textbook. Cindy sits nearby reading a magazine. They read pieces aloud to each other and languidly philosophize. Cindy asks Christina if she's having a good time and Christina says she is. They talk about Fefu and Christina struggles to identify what it is about Fefu that unsettles her. "Her mind is adventurous." Christina determines that Fefu's adventurousness leads to some measure of disregard for convention and that she, Christina, is probably more of a conformist and therefore threatened by Fefu. Cindy tells Christina about a strange dream she had the night before. In her dream, she was threatened by an angry young doctor and escapes with her sister in a taxi, waking just before he catches her. Neither know what this dream means.
Julia's guest room is a converted storage room. She lays in the bed, dressed in a hospital gown, and is hallucinating quietly. In her monologue, Julia describes being abused by unidentified attackers: "They clubbed me. They broke my head. They broke my will. They broke my hands. They tore my eyes out. They took my voice away. They didn't do anything to my heart because I didn't bring my heart with me." She explains that the judges love her and that's why they beat her. "He said that I had to be punished because I was getting too smart." They are also after Fefu and Julia cries out to her judges to spare Fefu "for she's only a joker." Julia says her prayer, declaring man to be human and woman to be, among other things, evil and the source of evil. "The mate for man is woman and that is the cross man must bear." In an echo of Fefu and Emma's conversation on the lawn, Julia says that man's sexuality is physical and therefore pure whereas woman's sexuality is spiritual "and they take those feelings with them to the afterlife where they corrupt the heavens." Julia hallucinates that she is being slapped for not believing her prayer. Sue interrupts her, bringing in a bowl of soup.
Paula declares to Sue that she has determined that a love affair lasts exactly "seven years and three months" and goes on to describe the pattern in detail. Paula recommends celibacy to solve the problem of overlapping love affairs, then puzzles over how the mind and body each differently get over a breakup. Sue asks her if something wrong. Paula says no and Sue leaves to take soup to Julia. Cecilia enters the kitchen and it becomes apparent that there was a relationship between her and Paula, which has fizzled out. Cecilia apologizes repeatedly for not calling and Paula shrugs it off. Paula tells Cecilia that she has been examining herself since they were together and is disappointed that she hasn't made more of her life. Paula was the less dominant one in their former relationship and organized herself around Cecilia's happiness. When Cecilia left, Paula's life lost meaning. Fefu interrupts, coming into the kitchen for lemonade. She invites them to croquet and Paula apologizes to Cecilia, "I'm not reproaching you." Cecilia, speaking up for the first time since Paula began pouring out her heart, takes Paula's hand and says, "I know. I've missed you too."
The final part of the play takes place in the living room in the evening. The women all enter, moving about their business while Cecilia is telling Sue, "We cannot survive in a vacuum. We must be part of a community." Julia connects this with her isolation as a person who has hallucinations because only other hallucinating people can understand what she is going through. The group prepares for their meeting. They are having a dress rehearsal for an educational fundraising event. Fefu opens the presentation; Paula goes next. Emma is dressed in an exotic costume for her part and she recites from the writings of Emma Sheridan Fry, a children's acting teacher. While they discuss the order of their presentation, Cecilia sits next to Paula and puts her hand on Paula's leg, absent mindedly. When they finish, everyone except Cindy and Julia go to the kitchen to prepare coffee. Christina comes running back into the living room because there's a water fight in the kitchen over who will do the dishes. Emma, Paula, Sue, and Fefu begin chasing each other through the house with pans of water. Christina hides on the couch until the water fight is over.
Paula remembers when she was new to the faculty and thought that everyone who was rich was happy. She has changed her mind. "I think we should teach the poor and let the rich take care of themselves." Paula starts crying; Cecilia kisses her and they leave the living room. Sue, Christina, Cindy, and Emma go out to the lawn to look at the stars, leaving Fefu and Julia behind to talk. Fefu asks Julia directly if she can walk and Julia says she cannot. Fefu is frustrated with Julia for not trying. "What is it you see?" Fefu demands of her. "And you're contagious. I'm going mad too," Fefu accuses Julia. Fefu admits to Julia that Phillip hates her; Fefu is devastated by this knowledge. She implores Julia to fight with her, grabbing her and shaking her. Christina comes in on this scene and Fefu is sure the other woman's good opinion of her is totally ruined. She grabs her gun, saying she's going to clean it. Christina tells her not to and Fefu calls her "silly." Cecilia enters, ready to leave. Fefu goes onto the lawn. Julia is worried that she told Fefu something about the judges and that now she will be in trouble. A shot rings out and Julia touches her forehead. Just like in the first hunting accident, she is mysteriously bleeding. Then Julia's head falls back and she dies. Fefu enters the living room with a dead rabbit, surprised that she has killed it.
Cindy is a friend of Fefu's and cares for her despite Fefu's wild behavior. She is patient and spends most of the play in company with Christina, who doesn't know this group of friends. Cindy does not express an opinion as to whether she approves of Fefu or not, giving readers the impression that she rides the fence: she mutely goes along with Fefu's ideas but maintains a calm, normal exterior, not talking or behaving like Fefu or Emma. Cindy has a disturbing dream wherein an angry young doctor chases her. Her dream draws on a fear of authority figures: her significant other, Mike; a young male doctor; and secret policemen. In her dream, she is aided only by her sister Meg. For a moment in the dream Cindy commands everyone's respects by yelling, "Stop and listen to me." She has been separated for a few months from Mike and there are hints that she is unhappy, but, except for describing the dream, Cindy never opens up about her feelings.
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