Ashley Hayes as Cecilia (l) with Tiffany Knight as Paula (r)
Mark Rutkowski
Written by Maria Irene Fornes
Directed by Leslie Swackhamer
Performances:
Oscar G. Brockett Theatre
October 12, 13, 14*, 18*, 19, 20 @ 8:00 PM
October 20 & 21 @ 2:00 PM**
Tickets:
$16 adults, $13 UT faculty & staff, $10 students available online at www.utpac.org or by phone at 477–6060
Media and Resources:
- Cast List
- Director Information
- Playwright Information
- Synopsis
- Press and Reviews
- Costume renderings by Susan Branch
- Scene renderings by Sarah Davidson
**Fefu and Her Friends have a Salon!
Following the matinee performances of Fefu and Her Friends, we invite you to join us for a literary salon. Salons have provided a space for people, especially women, to increase personal knowledge through a collective process of sharing ideas. This tradition can be traced from seventeenth century's Marquise de Rambouillet's intellectual conversations conducted from her bedside to Dorothy Parker's regular, rowdy meetings at the notorious Algonquin Round Table in New York City in the 1920s. Through creating an atmosphere of learning for those barred from higher education, salons historically encouraged debate, dialogue and the showcasing of artistic talent.
Fefu and Her Friends is a play that relies on the multiple perspectives of multiple viewers. Salons function like the play itself, and will provide the opportunity to extend the conversations by Fefu. Each salon is framed by a theme: “Feminism” (10/20) and “;Women and Art” (10/21). Guests will include featured artists, activists, and scholars who will participate in informal and intimate conversations with all attendees while tea is served, followed by a large–group discussion.
Salon Dates: October 20 & 21
Time: Approximately 3:30 pm
Location: Winship 1.134
Admission: Free
Reserve your seat! To ensure your place, RSVP by e–mailing fefusalons@gmail.com.
*There will be post–show talkbacks following the Oct. 14 and Oct. 18 shows. Talkbacks will take place in Winship 1.134.
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 I 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 II 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 III 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.
Fefu and Her Friends was written in 1977. Fore more information, visit Maria Irene Fornes' website.
Quote from the LA weekly: "One of the most powerful plays written about the mysteries and shared hallucinations of the female experience."
Playwright: Maria Irene Fornes
Maria Irene Fornes was born in Havana, Cuba on 14th May 1930. Following her father's sudden death she emigrated with her mother and a sister to the US, arriving in Manhattan as a Spanish speaker, in 1945. Growing up in New York, Fornes left Catholic school to work various unskilled jobs, study painting, travel, and eventually worked as a self–employed textile designer creating scarves sold on commission. While traveling in France and Spain, she was exposed to theatre but it didn't occur to her to become a playwright until 1964, when she had a nineteen–day inspired writing obsession that ended in her first play, Tango Palace. From Tango Palace, Fornes has gone on to write over forty plays.
In 1972 Fornes worked with Ed Bullins, Rosalyn Drexler, Adrienne Kennedy, Rochelle Owens, Sam Shepard and Megan Terry to create New York Theatre Strategy, a space where playwrights could test out their ideas and have control over their work. Administration of this project would take up a lot of Fornes' time and energy. However, in 1977 Fefu and Her Friends was produced under her direction at New York Theatre Strategy. Fefu gives a group of women gathering to discuss an education project, and as with other Fornes plays, it concerns characters seriously seeking some greater understanding of their lives. Although the conservative mainstream initially withheld approval, it has come to be recognized as an innovative and important American play and continues to be one of Fornes' most produced works. Fefu was sparked by some dresses she found in a thrift shop, a characteristic start for this playwright and a method valued from the avant–garde ‘happenings’ of the 50s and 60s.
Read the full biography of Maria Irene Fornes.
LESLIE SWACKHAMER (SSDC) directs in theatres across the nation and is currently based in Houston. She is known for creating strong acting ensembles with bravado performances and striking visual statements. Her first Houston production was the Bayou City Concert Musicals' Fiorello, co–directed with Paul Hope. BCCM donates all of their proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House. She has just co–directed The Secret Garden, again in collaboration with Mr. Hope, for BCCM. Last season, she also directed a critically acclaimed and sold–out run of David Hare's Amy's View, for Houston's Stages Repertory Theatre.
Prior to moving to Houston last year, Leslie called Seattle home, and directed at many of the fine theatres there. As associate artistic director of Seattle's ACT Theatre, she founded the Women Playwrights Festival (now in its 11th year at Seattle Repertory Theatre) as well as directed many productions of A Christmas Carol. Notable ACT productions include the world premiere of Lee Blessing's Going to St. Ives, Steven Dietz's The Nina Variations (co–directed with Mr. Dietz), Old Wicked Songs, Later Life, and the acapella do–wop musical AvenueX. Other Seattle productions include the critically acclaimed Psychic Life of Savages for the Empty Space Theatre (Bravura Performance Award), and Much Ado About Nothing for Seattle Shakespeare Festival (Seattle TIMES Award for Best Shakespeare). Regional productions include the world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's What Corbin Knew, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Wit for the Madison Repertory Theatre, the U.S. premiere of Mrs. Klein, and many productions for the Cleveland Play House where she was artistic associate for five years. Leslie has been a TCG Observer in new play development and has directed and developed over 100 new plays for numerous theatres across the country, as well as serving on play selection panels for the NEA, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the O'Neill Festival.
She also directs opera, most recently a highly acclaimed new production of Madama Butterfly (performing in opera companies throughout North America) in collaboration with noted contemporary artist Jun Kaneko. Her 2007 production of Don Giovanni for Opera in the Heights in Houston broke box office records. She is slated to direct her first Marriage of Figaro this Fall.
Leslie has taught directing and acting at the University of Washington, Emory University, Case Western Reserve University and USC. She is a founding board member and past President of Theatre Puget Sound, the regional alliance of theatres and theatre artists. Husband Ten Eyck Swackhamer is the general manager of the Alley Theatre. They and their virtuoso daughter, Sarah, are having a great time making Houston their new home!
Cast:
- Jenny Keto as Fefu
- Jena Maenius as Cindy
- Alexandra Budzieszewski as Christina
- Kim Adams as Julia
- Molly Searcy as Emma
- Tiffany Knight as Paula
- Sofia Ruiz as Sue
- Ashley Hayes as Cecilia
