User:Agaricobob/Fefu&HerFriends/LitReview

Literature Review

Fornés, María Irene & Robb Creese. “I write these messages that come.” The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 21, No. 4, Playwrights and Playwriting Issue (Dec 1977), pp. 25-40.

In this essay Fornés describes the aesthetic which guides her work, how her plays are no longer formulated theses presented to the audience. While much of this essay is potentially far too broad in scope to apply to the page about Fefu & Friends, she does specifically mention the play a few times throughout these pages. She reveals that the opening scene is culturally related to a Mexican joke about two men at a bullfight. “One says to the other, ‘She is pretty, that one over there.’ The other one says, ‘Which one?’ So the first one takes his rifle and shoots her. He says, ‘that one, the one that falls.’” She also described the chronology of when she wrote the play, how she started with that first scene, a few years later added some more, and then 5 years later seriously sat down and wrote it in the few months before it was released in May 1977. She admits to finishing the play just 4 days before the opening night. She relates to her plays through distance, saying that “A playwright has a different distance from each script. Some are two feet away, and some are two hundred feet away. Fefu was not even two inches away. It is right where I am.”

Fornés, María Irene & Bonnie Marranca. “Interview: Maria Irene Fornes.” Performing Arts Journal. Vol. 2, No. 3 (Winter 1978), pg. 106-11.

In this transcribed interview between Bonnie Marranca and the author herself, we get a more focused examination upon the play of Fefu & Friends only. Marranca guides the conversation into interesting avenues of discussion of the original staging, how Fefu & Friends is a much more realistic play than her previous works, how the original theater influenced the writing of the play itself. She also asks Fornes her thoughts about directing her own plays and the experimental fashion in which it was first staged.

Geis, Deborah R. “Wordscapes of the Body: Performative Language as “Gestus” in Maria Irene Fornes’s Plays.” Theatre Journal. Vol. 42, No. 3. October 1990, pg. 291-307.

In this academic study of Maria Irene Fornes’s plays, Deborah Geis explores how the female body is staged in her various plays. As Geis explains, “The plays of MIF…emphasize the creation of ‘embodied’ characters—that is, character who enact the movements toward and away from female subjectivity, in which corporeality locates itself as the site of culturally-conditioned ‘meanings.’” The essay also provides a valuable quote by Fornes herself, “The style of Fefu dealt more with characters as real persons rather than voices that are the expression of the mind of the play.” This essay also provides an in-depth discussion of Julia, who Geis claims is “the most extreme victim of this male-controlled discourse.” Geis relates the act structure of the play to the characters dealing with their “difficulty accepting the body as a possible site for the inscription of their subjectivity because their bodies have already been (in)scripted for them with the male codes of their cultureThe play’s third act invites a possible re-inscription on their own terms, which will be accomplished through the ending of their physical/verbal paralysis and their joing together as a community of women.”

Character Analysis

Jordan, Kela L. "PERSPECTIVES ON WOMEN AND AGGRESSION ILLUSTRATED THROUGH CARYL CHURCHILL’S TOP GIRLS, MARIA IRENE FORNES’S FEFU AND HER FRIENDS, AND SHEILA CALLAGHAN’S THAT PRETTY, PRETTY, OR; THE RAPE PLAY." Thesis (2003): 1-100. JSTOR. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10211.9/466/FINAL%20THESIS.pdf>.

Summary: In Kelda Lynn Jordan’s thesis, she seeks to understand the use of aggressive verbal abuse in society for women and how characters struggle against the feminine stereotype. Jordan uses Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu and Her Friends as an example of the effects of hurtful communication. Jordan notes that the character Fefu conveys male characteristics in that she overpowers those around her, will manipulate, and exert control over those around her. Fefu has two sides according to Jordan- the controlling trait and the motherly trait. Fefu also criticizes herself and women in the play as being lesser than men, which also shows her preference for male traits. Jordan also comments on the meak stereotypical weakness of the other characters such as Paula, Sue, Christina, and Cindy. The only woman who stands against Fefu is Julia and this makes Fefu more aggressive toward her, leading her to kill the rabbit that symbolizes her loss of power and control.

Weaknesses and Strengths: The strengths of this article are shown in the various examples given of the power struggle and personality crisis that Fefu has as a woman. Jordan uses accurate examples to explain how Fefu exerts her influence over others and controls the other women when she herself is still controlled by men. The weakness in Jordan’s thesis is the lack of analysis of the other characters and how they deal with Fefu’s control. Also, it would have been interesting to compare the feminine characteristics of the women in comparison to Fefu’s male traits.

Edison by Robert Wilson Review by: Laurence Shyer

Wilson, Robert. "Edison." Ed. Laurence Shyer. Theatre Journal 32.3 (1980): 265-66. JSTOR. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3207127>.

Summary: In this journal, Robert Wilson explores the importance of female relationships and their roles within the group. Wilson points out how Fornes exposed the world or period of time without men where the audience is able to see how Fefu and her seven friends communicate. Wilson notes that the audience is not only drawn to Fefu, but Julia as well with her intense hallucinations and also the tense emotions between Celia and Pauline. The article states that Fefu and her Friends, “challenges our preconceptions of life” and that Julia’s final wound in the end is “our own.”

Weaknesses and Strengths:

Although short, the article was able to describe different aspects of the character traits that develop through their fight in a world dominated by males. This article is useful because it points out different perspectives that can be looked at in an individual analysis of the entire play. The biggest weakness is the brevity of this article because it has good points, but there is not a great amount of information to work with.

Modern Drama And the Rhetoric of Theater by William B. Worthen

Worthen, William B. Modern Drama And The Rhetoric Of Theater. University of California Press, 1992. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 13 Feb. 2012.

Summary:

William Worthen points out the control of the unseen character in the Fefu and her Friends which is the “invisible spectator” of a man who controls the actions of the women in the play. He is consistently referred to in the play as “Phillip”, “husband”, or “men”, but these charcaters are never physically represented. However, they hold power over the women in how they react and communicate with one another. The invisible character is seen in Julia’s hallucinations where she is slapped, Fefu’s gun game, and the submissive nature of the other six characters.

Weaknesses and Strengths:

This book is valuable to the project because it gives perspectives on not only the characters, but how the arrangement of the play affects the overall plot by Fornes’s idea to create segments of individual plots. Worthen also talks about the separation between the drama and theatrical realism that adds to the message of women in a controlled male society. He also says that the audience plays a role as the invisible character in their judgments of the women through their individual opinions.

Themes and Motifs

Jordan, Kelda Lynn "Abstract of PERSPECTIVES ON WOMEN AND AGGRESSION ILLUSTRATED THROUGH CARYL CHURCHILL’S TOP GIRLS, MARIA IRENE FORNES’S FEFU AND HER FRIENDS, AND SHEILA CALLAGHAN’S THAT PRETTY,PRETTY, OR; THE RAPE PLAY"

http://csus-dspace.calstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10211.9/466/FINAL%20THESIS.pdf?sequence=8

Kelda Jordan of C.S.U. discusses the themes of control and manipulation in "Fefu and Her Friends" in her thesis. She focuses on these to support her discussions of aggression and nonphysical abuse as ways of escaping what is considered to be a woman's role in western society.

She states that "Fefu and Her Friends" illustrates how most women who struggle to escape the confine of a woman's stereotypical role in society tend to believe that the only way to do so is to control her surroundings and those close to her. Women who step too far outside of the boundaries that society has set for them are considered to be overly aggressive, and take on traits that are generally considered to be those of a man, and the women who possess these traits find that they are perceived as having these traits in excess, simply because the traits are exhibited at all. In her thesis, Kelda Jordan focuses solely on this single facet of the play, and is therefore only of some use to the comprehension of "Fefu and Her Friends." She also only contributes ideas and themes from the play that support her thesis, and does not give a complete accounting of the play.

Edited by Krasner, David pg. 444 "A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama"

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46651864/6/Native-American-Drama

The themes of loneliness, isolation and entrapment are strongly present in "Fefu and Her Friends" according to David Krasner. He says that all women have been constrained in life choices to some extent. Fefu is imprisoned in her unhappy marriage, and because she is a woman, she does not possess the power to escape it, and is beginning to slide deeper into depression. Paula recently was left by Cecilia, her lover, and Cindy broke up with a man. Julia received emotional trauma when a deer was shot, suffered convusions, and is now paralized. Julia symbolizes how the other women are trapped in their own way.

David Krasner does not write for the purpose of discussing themes and motifs, however, they are present in "A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama" in a more peripheral sense. He references them, and writes about them. He does give a fairly thorough accounting of themes present in "Fefu and Her Friends" overall though.

Structure

Smith, Raynette Halvorsen. "Intersections Between Feminism and Post-modernism: Possibilities For Feminist Scenic Design." Classical and Modern Literature: A Quarterly. University of California, Riverside. Spring 1990.

Smith mentions "Fefu and Her Friends" in a note that cites it as using a created environment and adjoining off-stage rooms as the set for the performance. In her article, Smith analyzes post-modernism and how it relates to advances in feminist scene design, but she merely mentions "Fefu and Her Friends" in a note rather than commenting on the play with any level of detail.

Austin, Gayle. "The Madwoman in the Spotlight: PLays of Maria Irene Fornes." Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Women's Theatre. University of Michigan Press, 1989.

Austin credits Fornes with skillful use of the "madwoman" character in three of her plays, with "Fefu and Her Friends" being one. She discusses how the interactions between the women in the play demonstrate how women act when untempered by the presence of men. Austin then addresses Fornes's use of the audience as a way to intensify the play's effect. The audience is required to move about the stage in order to see all of the action on set and thereby seems to eavesdrop on the conversations between characters. The feminist use of the "madwoman" character, Julia, is a tool by which Fornes conveys the duality of the main character, Fefu. Julia is the struggling, tormented side of Fefu who is killed at the end of the play because of Fefu's ability to take action, an ability that Julia lacks. Julia's death allows for a pure, reinvented image of Fefu in the end of the play, but the struggle between the two characters exemplifies the feminist idea of "women's predicament."