LAFPI

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble continues its “Circa ’69!” season of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey’s 1969 inception with the signature work of early feminist giant of the avant-garde María Irene Fornés, Fefu and Her Friends. Denise Blasor directs.

In this splendidly surreal comedy-drama, a group of eight women gathers at the country home of the brilliant and eccentric Fefu to plan an event for their do-gooding educational work. As multiple conflicts unfold between the old friends, they struggle to define who they are and what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated world.

In a format that was groundbreaking for its time, the play is divided into three parts. The first part takes place in the living room of the house with the full audience. The second part is set in four different areas of the house: the lawn, the study, the bedroom and the kitchen. Fornés deconstructed the familiar stage, removing the fourth wall, and scenes are played in multiple locations simultaneously. The audience is divided into groups to watch each scene, then they rotate to the next set as the scene is repeated, until each group has seen all four scenes. The play concludes in the living room with the full audience.

Starring Tiffany Cole, Dominique Corona, Sandy Duarte, Tanya Gorlow, Jennifer Lee Laks, Sydney A. Mason, Zaire Martínez Roldán, Alexis B. Santiago, Cynthia Yelle.

“This is a play about female empowerment and about all aspects of femininity,” says Blasor. “With only a small number of audience members present for each scene, they become part of the characters’ most intimate reflections about their relationships to men, to each other, to Eve and ‘original sin.’ It’s about the volumes of sadness that we, as women, carry, and how, sometimes, we are the enemies to ourselves instead of being sisters. It’s a play about awakening and not surrendering. It’s set in 1935, a wonderfully historic era full of jazz, art, poetry and politics.”

Performances of Fefu and Her Friends take place on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.and Sundays at 2 p.m. Additional weeknight performances are scheduled on Wednesday, Sept. 11; Thursday, Sept. 19, and Wednesday, Sept. 25; all at 8 p.m. There will be three preview performances, on Wednesday, July 31; Thursday, Aug. 1, and Friday, Aug.2, also at 8 p.m.

Join LAFPI on Saturday, August 24 for our first LAFPI Night at the Odyssey! Meet up at 7pm for a free class of wine before the show. Click Here for Info.  Use code LAFPI for $25 tix (which include a free drink coupon).

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