FEFU & HER FRIENDS
It’s a killer opening line. “My husband reminded me,” says Fefu, the axel on which this eight-woman ensemble rotates, “to have a constant reminder of how loathsome women are.”
It’s a controversial statement from a divisive playwright and feminist, Maria Irene Fornes, who once herself said she preferred men to women – and yet is responsible for this oestrogen-powered Obie Award Winning play (Best off-Broadway Play, 1977) that feminist icon Susan Sontag once called, “wonderful, important.”
Becca Johnston, who plays Fefu, says that this complexity is channelled through her character. “Fefu wants to be strong like a man, and hates the frailty of women.” And yet despite this, Fefu has conformed, giving up her job in order to become a healthy housewife.
The eight women are drawn together in the spring of 1935 to an isolated country house in order to discuss their money-raising agenda for socially disadvantaged children. And, as Johnston laughingly puts it, “Hijinks ensue,” including water fights, hallucinations and death.
But the crux of the play is the women’s struggle to embrace their intellectual freedom in a country only a decade past granting them the right to vote. “It is very different to contemporary society,” admits Johnston, whose company Red Rabbit Theatre is presenting the play unadulterated, “but a lot of the raw issues are the same as today. Like wanting to have a career, to have it all and be happy, without having to make sacrifices.”
Fittingly for an all-female ensemble play, the production is (almost) all-female (the sound designer being the lone man, and is a late addition). Directed by Caroline Craig, the company deliberately pursued female talent, in order to, “create a world that is not influenced by the world of men.”
As with the play, this production is, “a discussion of what you can do if there are no limits to the possibilities.”
Aug 6-14, Parade Studio, NIDA, 215 Anzac Pde, Kensington, $22-30, 1300 795 012, ticketek.com.au
