the playwright
Maria Irene Fornes
(May 14, 1930 -
October 30, 2018)
Maria Irene Fornes was a Cuban-American playwright, director, and teacher. She wrote over 50 works including plays, musicals/musical plays, sketches, and adaptations. Fornes was also a queer woman--most notably, she had a relationship with Susan Sontag, a prolific American writer.
Fornes was born in Havana, Cuba, and she immigrated to the United States in 1945, with her mother and sister.
She began her career as a painter and textile designer. Her training in the visual arts influenced her work as a playwright (including specific references to iconic paintings in Fefu dialogue).
Fornes taught playwriting all over the United States. Her teaching emphasized character development and opening the imagination of the writer. She founded the Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Lab at the International Arts Relations (INTAR) in New York City, a theatre "committed to producing works by Latinx writers."
Fefu and Her Friends is considered a "turning point" in Fornes's already well-established career as a playwright and director. Fornes developed the play over a thirteen-year span. She began writing the play in 1964, and the play was finished four days before the premiere performance in 1977.
As explained by Fornes herself, Fefu was originally inspired by a Mexican joke:
"There are two Mexicans in sombreros sitting at a bullfight and one says to the other, ‘Isn’t she beautiful, the one in yellow?’ and he points to a woman on the other side of the arena crowded with people. The other one says, ‘Which one?’ and he takes his gun and shoots her and says, ‘The one that falls.’ In the first draft of the play Fefu explains that she started playing this game with her husband because of that joke. But in rewriting the play I took out this explanation.” --Fornes
Fefu seemed to be a particularly personal work for Fornes. While writing Fefu, Fornes returned to a folder of her past writings, which included what she referred to as "sufferings, personal sufferings."
Though Fornes resisted identity politics, and sometimes resisted labeling her work as inherently political, Latine, or feminist, her work is often regarded to be so. Fefu is especially considered to be a work of feminist theatre.
When asked about whether or not Fefu is a feminist play, Fornes said:
“Yes, it is a feminist play. The play is about women. It’s a play that deals with each of these women with enormous tenderness and affection. I have not deliberately attempted to see these women ‘as women have rarely been seen before.’ I show the women as I see them and if it is different from the way they’ve been seen before, it’s because that’s how I see them. The play is not fighting anything, not negating anything. My intention has not been to confront anything. I felt as I wrote the play that I was surrounded by friends. I felt very happy to have such good and interesting friends.” --Fornes
Fornes passed away in 2018 after suffering with Alzheimer's disease. The documentary The Rest I Make Up (2018) captures her final years and memorializes her legacy.
Sources
“Biography.” The Fornes Institute. Last accessed January 18, 2025. https://www.fornesinstitute.com/about/biography.
Cummings, Scott T. Maria Irene Fornes. Routledge: 2013.
Fornes, Maria Irene. Fefu and Her Friends, New, Expanded Edition. PAJ Publications, 2017.
Fornes, Maria Irene and Robb Creese. “I Write These Messages That Come.” The Drama Review 21, no. 4 (Dec 1977): 25-40.
Garcia-Romero, Anne. The Fornes Frame: Contemporary Latina Playwrights and the Legacy of Maria Irene Fornes. University of Arizona Press, 2016.
Kent, Assunta Bartolomucci. Maria Irene Fornes and Her Critics. Greenwood Press, 1996.
Robinson, Marc, editor. The Theater of Maria Irene Fornes. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Rowen, Bess. “Staging Queer Feminisms and Legacies in North America.” In Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities, edited by Emily A. Rollie. Routledge, 2024.
Svich, Cardidad, Brooke Berman, Migdalia Cruz, Julie Hebert, Anne Garcia-Romero, Jennifer Maisel, Oliver Mayer, Han Ong, Lisa Schlesinger, Alisa Solomon and Alina Troyano. “The Legacy of Maria Irene Fornes: A Collection of Impressions and Exercises.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 31, no. 3 (September 2009): 1-32.