"Fefu and Her Friends," by Maria Irene Fornes, is a witty and disturbing contemporary play. A key image from the play occurs early on, when one character talks about the experience of lifting up a stone and seeing the slime, fungus, and worms underneath. "Fefu" is about peeling back the gentile facades of life and seeing the unpleasant decay that lies beneath.

The play, which has an all-female cast, takes place at an elegant New England country house where the characters of the title have assembled. As the women gather to talk in various groupings, Fornes dissects such topics as gender roles, marriage, and educational conventions. Stirrings of insanity, violence, heterosexual frustration, and repressed lesbian desire contribute to the play's unsettling atmosphere. Overall, a memorable work from a grand master of contemporary theater.

this book is a nearly forgotten classic of 70's theatrical avant garde; it is so good to see it in print. Read it. It's a hoot!

Maria Irene Fornes is arguably the greatest living American avant-garde playwright, and without a doubt one of our most talented (and most underappreciated) writers in any form. This book, edited by Professor Marc Robinson of Yale, brings together a diverse group of essays that take on multiple aspects of Fornes challenging vision of theatre - her feminism, her incorporation of class and race, her startlingly alien yet crystalline language, her search for new forms and spaces in which to create the life of the theater. The essays are of a uniformly high quality and the interview with Ms. Fornes herself offers great insight into how she views her own work. Highly recommended.

"Abingdon Square" is a play by Maria Irene Fornes. According to an introductory note, the play was given a workshop production at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1984 and opened at New York's American Place Theatre in 1987. The play takes place in New York City, and spans the years 1908-1917.

The play is about Marion, a young woman who, while still a teenager, marries a man more than old enough to be her father. Her new husband, Juster, has a son Marion's age. Additional issues complicate the lives of this family unit. Fornes follows this family's emotional journey over the course of time.

"Abingdon" deals with such issues as fantasy, temptation, guilt, and loss. There are some really painful scenes. The play has many touches with potential symbolic meaning. Overall, a solid piece of drama. Also recommended: Fornes' "Fefu and Her Friends."

Delgado & Svich's book is a Celebration of Acquaintance with still-living master playwright and teacher Maria Irene Fornes--"America's most lauded theatrical 'outsider,'" per Svich. Nearly 90 professionals gifted this energetic, chaotic tribute with thought balloons, haiku, personal diaries, mini-plays, and academic exercises. Most useful were Svich's introductory lecture, Teresa Marrero's transcription of a UCLA workshop (1998), Delgado's retrospective interview (1997), and a preliminary list of 42 plays by Fornes with year/site(s) of production.

New York--where Cuban-born Fornes first settled in the U.S.--was the location of her much talked-about writing workshops at the International Arts Relations (INTAR) Hispanic American Arts Center (1978-1991). The published musings of Migdalia Cruz, Oliver Mayer, Leo Garcia, Edit Villarreal, Octavio Solis, Luis Alfaro, Cherrie Moraga, Silvia Gonzalez S., Bernardo Solano, Paula Weston Solano, Candido Tirado, including Svich, affirm the benefits of Fornes's mentorship.

Less familiar to me was Fornes's long-time association with the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival (1978-1991) in Los Angeles. I particularly enjoyed Leon Martell's account about their work at the festival ("There was nothing else to do..., but make theater and engage in drunken art fights.") and at a festival in Italy in 1992 ("Everyone was weeping. Everything came together, and the lightning flashed all around.").

The spectrum of her work, included in this book is amazing. Though all the plays have a similar aesthetic, each one has a singular style and tone. I have read some critiques, which suggest that, in this postmodern world, her work might be too obvious. This is laughable though. While her work, as in Mud, has the trappings of simplicity owing to the fact that it is a relatively short piece, the impact and depth of the play is found in the nuances. One must consider Mae. What is her place between a poor, illiterate mate and a pathetically snobbish boor? Both men hold a power over her by virtue of their sex. She has little alternative but to choose from among those two men. But the oppressive constructs she works within also give her an invisible weapon. As a woman, it is expected that she care for them and nurture their health. This is a place of power, if not an obvious one. This play in particular can be looked at from two faces--as allegory or as a psychological portrayal of a woman's mind. This is only a short review, so I must stop soon. But imagine. if a few lines of a review can reveal such complexity of depth then what is it that the postmodern critics find so simple and obvious? Are they that much more brilliant than the rest of us? Or, perhaps, the cynicism of postmodern analysis takes the circumstantial plot as the true thing that Fornes is aiming for. Does a plot need to be as convoluted as the one in the film Magnolia, to convey deep meaning? I enjoyed that film, but I don't feel it captured a tenth of dynamics of what occurrs in in the plays by Fornes. Perhaps that is the curse of Hollywood, however. In which case, I am glad that Fornes is not or ever will be mainstream. Postmoderns may settle for the for the flashy pyro-technic plot, in which there are 20 twists of fate that we must smirk at and a large cast of characters that we must feel sick for, but in Fornes' work there is real fire--ignited from condensed intensity. I strongly recommend this book.