Fefu and Her Friends

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1990

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2 Summary

While Part 1 takes place in one location and is staged in the main auditorium, Part 2 occurs in four locations simultaneously. The audience is divided into four parts and travels from each location to the next, so each scene is performed four times, and the audience does not all see the scenes in the same order.

“On the Lawn” Summary

Fefu and Emma carry vegetables from the cellar, and Fefu is dressed in a gardening ensemble. Emma asks, “Do you think about genitals all the time?” (27) Fefu says that she doesn’t, and Emma explains that she thinks that it’s odd that people go about their business all the time without ever talking about the fact that they all have genitals. Emma theorizes that sexual performance is the basis on which people are judged to get into heaven. Fefu agrees that since “on earth we are judged by public acts” (28), it only makes sense that heaven should judge humans on private acts.

Fefu tells Emma that she always makes her happy, even though Fefu is constantly in psychological pain. Fefu describes a large, ugly black cat that started coming around her kitchen. Fefu feels obligated to feed him, though once she started doing this he had “foul diarrhea” (29) all over her kitchen. Fefu suggests playing croquet, and Emma agrees. Fefu exits, and Emma uses Fefu’s hat and gloves to “improvise an effigy of Fefu” (29), to which Emma recites a Shakespeare sonnet. Fefu returns with a pitcher and glasses.

“In the Study” Summary

Christina reads a French textbook and mutters phrases in French while Cindy looks at a magazine. They discuss what it means to be swept off one’s feet. Cindy asks Christina what she thinks of Fefu, and Christina confesses that Fefu confuses her. Fefu challenges conventions instead of conforming to them, and Christina finds this frightening. She admits that she thinks people who do this are more important than she is, but she feels that they threaten her way of life, which makes her uncomfortable. Cindy tells Christina about a dream she had the previous night. She was dancing with a young doctor, and then suddenly everyone in the room was pretending to participate in singing lessons while two policemen judged them.

One of the policemen assaulted Cindy, and the doctor started cursing at her. Cindy forcefully told them to stop and said, “restrain yourself” (32), although she really wanted to say, “respect me” (32). Cindy ran because the young man tried to kill her; she woke up as he nearly caught up. Fefu enters after finishing her scene with Emma and invites them to play croquet. The two women agree. Christina comments that Cindy ought to find a new doctor, and Cindy replies that the man wasn’t really her doctor. They follow Fefu out.

“In the Bedroom” Summary

Julia’s bedroom appears to be a storage room with a mattress on the floor to accommodate her. Julia wears a white hospital gown and hallucinates. She does not, however, seem insane but “rather still and luminous” (33); hallucinating does not scare her. Julia talks about invisible judges who beat her, take away her voice and her will, and force her to smile. The judges tell her that women must hide away parts of the body that smell, and that women have entrails that are the heaviest thing on earth, so they are not meant to run. They say that ballet dancers are exempt and can dance because they don’t have entrails—except for Isadora Duncan who should not have been dancing because dancing made her insane. Julia explains that she is being punished for being intelligent, and the judges are out for Fefu for the same reason.

Julia talks about the incident with the deer, explaining that she was allowed to live because she promised to change. Julia exclaims that the world is centered on humans and human beings are all men. Some things in the world are evil and exist for men to conquer, including women. Women are corrupted and go to hell so they can be purified and come back as men. Julia acts as if the invisible judges have slapped her. She wonders why she can’t forget about the judges when all other women have done it. Sue enters and brings Julia a bowl of soup. She offers to help Julia, but Julia declines. Sue leaves the soup and exits.

“In the Kitchen” Summary

In the kitchen, Paula writes figures on a pad as Sue waits for soup to heat on the stove. There is an ice tray with sticks in each compartment. Paula announces that she has come to the conclusion that love affairs last exactly seven years and three months: three months in love, and the rest of the time is spent going through stages of separation and acceptance of separation. Sue wonders how to avoid this. Paula proposes celibacy, but Sue replies, “Celibacy doesn’t solve anything” (37), and Paula agrees. Sue asks about the ice cube tray and suggests several uses of the ice cubes, including cooling one’s brain when someone is thinking too much or putting it in one’s mouth so no one will want to kiss you. Sue and Paula laugh and wrestle.

Paula speaks again about love affairs and how the physical end does not mean that the memories and feelings end. Sue exits to take the soup to Julia, and Cecilia enters. As they make tea, it becomes clear that they once had a love affair and that Cecilia left Paula. Paula comments that they regard each other like strangers now, even though Paula remembers everything. Fefu enters and gets a pitcher with glasses. She invites them to play croquet but notes that they are clearly having a serious discussion. Fefu exits. Paula apologizes, and Cecilia replies, “I know. I’ve missed you too” (40). They exit after Fefu.

Part 2 Analysis

Fefu and her Friends is particularly notable for its experimental second act, which is an early example of site-specific theatre. Site-specific theatre is a theatrical format in which the play is tailored to a specific performance site, which is typically a non-traditional theatre space. When viewing the venue for the original production, Fornés was struck by the thought that several of the offstage spaces could be other rooms in Fefu’s house. She decided to write the second act in four scenes, which would occur simultaneously in different rooms. The audience was split into four parts and travel from room to room, viewing the scenes in different orders. Although site-specific theatre has become much more common, when Fefu was written, the tactic was radical and innovative.

The non-traditional staging in Part 2 reminds audiences that they are viewing a play. It creates what Bertolt Brecht referred to as a distancing effect, which interferes with the suspension of disbelief and the illusion of reality that occur in more traditional performances. This distancing pushes audience members to think critically about the issues presented in the play rather than become fully emotionally involved only in the characters’ lives. As the audience moves from one space to another, they will walk past other audience members and may overhear parts of scenes that they already viewed. This method of staging also requires a detailed attention to timing, since Fefu appears in three of the four scenes.

Additionally, by bringing the audience into other areas of the house, the play invites them into the more private spaces of Fefu’s domestic sphere, rather than merely the living room which audiences viewed as passive observers in Part 1. The conversations and events in Part 2 are also more private than those that occur in the living room. The women are allowed to let their guard down in small groups. When Emma and Fefu discuss the idea that people’s private sexual lives might be the deciding factor in whether one meets reward or punishment in the afterlife, they identify the significance of these small, personal moments. In these scenes, the women make confessions to each other and discuss personal traumas. Cecelia and Paula break open and address the tension from their broken love affair that was underlying their interactions in the first act.

Perhaps the most private scene is in Julia’s bedroom. Vulnerable and dressed in a nightgown, Julia hallucinates alone. Through her hallucinations, Julia reveals that her injury was bestowed by invisible judges—whether imaginary, allegorical, or literal—who disabled her for being an independent thinker in order to put her in her place as a woman. Julia worries that Fefu, another independent thinker, might find herself in similar trouble with the invisible judges. The judges seem to be arbiters of patriarchal propriety, dictating that a woman must be organless, keeping hidden the parts of her body that produce odors as a woman matures.