Fornes on Fornes

"To approach a work of art with the wish to decipher its symbolism, and to extract the author's intentions from it, is to imply that the work can be something other than what it demonstrates, that the work can be treated as a code system which, when deciphered, reveals the true content of the work. A work fo art should not be other than what it demonstrates."

I think this quotation is CRUCIAL to understanding the kind of world Fornes gives us, and why in many ways Fefu has no plot in the traditional sense. Nothing happens, save for the very end, because this is not a series of plot points to interpret. Rather, it is an encounter on several levls: An encounter of these women with each other, an encounter of each women with her fantasies and nightmares, an encounter between the audience and the actors, and an encounter between both audience and actors and the space. These encounters transform everyone: Julia can no longer walk, Fefu has shit all over her kitchen floor, Christina can barely walk she's so terrified and hurt, Paula dissolves into tears, and a series of other more subtle transformations. But this play is not a series of symbols attempting to make a point about women: it is a demonstration of 8 women who exist precariously between dream and reality, and this existence threatens to destroy them.