Psychological analysis in Fefu acting

“Like Brecht, Fornes refuses wholly to engage the language of these early plays in the seamlessness of traditional narrative–but she takes this to the point where the characters themselves seem at times to be oblivious to the ‘story’ that they are supposed to be in.”

In Annie’s paper, in these above quotations, and in that article she sent (please please read, especially the part on Fefu; it’s a very sound reading of the text) Fornes has built into the themes of this play the tension between that which is said and that which is done, which is much like Brecht’s alienation between the life of the characters in the story and how the actor’s performance can comment on it. I’m very attracted to this idea of moments in the play in which transitions take place very suddenly, for no apparent reason. Cindy begins to talk about her dream very suddenly, just as Sue suddenly starts talking about the visits to the psychiatrists office after a water fight. Fefu has a very abrupt transition with Emma, just as Emma creates a completely new scene in her performance of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Recently in rehearsal, we have been very oriented to justifying these from a psychological perspective. What I want us to seek in future rehearsals is for a different approach to many of these. Rather, these abrupt transitions are breaks from the regular rules of reality, and consequently breaks from “naturalistic” rules of acting. This doesn’t mean the transitions are all instantaneous, or that during them you break character or break the fourth wall. I think it's subtler than that, more delicate than that.

I was once told that Fornes felt that Fefu demanded something closer to cinematic acting than stage acting: smaller, more subtle. While I think this is true, I think it also is indicative of these sudden transitions in the text. It’s as if each character, each scene is a montage, and those sudden transitions are like a cut to a different angle, a different location, a different sentiment, but it’s always a cut, never a smooth glide of the camera to another image. So that rather than each character being clearly understood in one, long, continuous shot, they are fractured into different ways of being that contrast greatly with one another.

So how do we "act," how do we perform a montage within one scene, one character? Don’t fight against the absurd or unrealistic moments or text in this play by finding a naturalistic way to justify it. Instead, underline moments or lines that strike you as absurd or surreal or out of place, and pursue the absurdity in the moments when it is absurd. If your character seems to contradict herself, or if she seems to be in a dream for only one sentence and then come back to the "reality" of the scene, commit equally to the dream portion as well as to the naturalism of the conversation that surrounds it. Otherwise the whole play becomes a wash of mostly realistic scenes of women with weird word choice.

Lastly, do not think about this too hard. It will become clearer with practical use in rehearsal, so just begin to go through the text and underline those points when you notice a montage occur, or a cut in perspective. We can go from there as a team.