Fefu and Her Friends
by María Irene Fornés
Directed by Alice Reagan
Thursday, March 5, 8pm
Friday, March 6, 8pm
Saturday, March 7, 3pm
Saturday, March 7, 8pm
Minor Latham Playhouse (Milbank Hall 118)
Tickets:
$14 general admission
$7 with BC/CUID
Fefu and Her Friends Director's Statement
María Irene Fornés wrote and directed her masterpiece, Fefu and Her Friends, in downtown NYC in 1977. Fefu (a nickname for Stephany) gathers seven college friends to her spacious, comfortable home to plan a fundraiser for an educational initiative for elementary grades. Most or all of the women are educators. Most or all have been damaged by men and by the world that says they are less than (it’s 1935, and also, now). Many of the women have been assaulted physically, emotionally, psychologically. Over the course of the afternoon, they talk, argue, laugh, have a water fight, and come to some hard realizations about how far they’ve strayed from where they thought they would be in mid-life. It’s a deceptively simple play. But one of the women, Julia, has a mysterious injury. A dead rabbit turns up. And famously, Part II moves. After Act I, the audience is invited to abandon their seats in the auditorium and move to four different spaces in the building to view four short scenes happening on a loop. The audience then returns to the proper theatre space for Part III, where everything is the same, but different.
This production will take place in Minor Latham Playhouse and four locations in Milbank Hall: the Arthur Ross Greenhouse, Krueger Lecture Hall, the Ella Weed Room with its Tiffany fireplace, and room 328, a modern classroom. Milbank Hall is the oldest building on Barnard’s campus, and has seen strife in recent months, including protests and lock-downs. The fact that the offices of the administration are housed there make the building a site of unease. I won’t go so far as to say Fefu will heal the building or our community. It’s not a healing kind of play. But what Fefu does do is shed light on entrenched problems and show women trying to deal with them, as best they can, together. We will enliven every floor of Milbank, invite the whole community (including our neighbors) into these spaces and wake up everyone’s senses to the sometimes musty smells, colors, and textures of women’s education, which is still happening here. Fefu offers the possibility that we can reorient to the mission of Barnard. What is getting in our way?
—Alice Reagan, director
Scenic Designer Sandra Goldmark
Lighting Designer Lucrecia Briceño
Costume Designer Saiya Palmer
Sound Designer Jane Shaw
Assistant Directors Lyla Arazi and Nathan Rakolta
Stage Manager Keala Henry
with Barnard and Columbia students