This enjoyable staging of Maria Irene Fornes' feminist classic Fefu and her Friends by director Hope McIntyre was presented promenade style in the historic Ralph Connor House. The audience began together in a basement room, where we were introduced to the characters, after which groups were split up to see 4 scenes occurring simultaneously. Each group saw the scenes in a differing order, which provided a slightly different colour to the remainder of the play. For example, my group saw the more pedestrian "every day" events first, then the stirring bedroom scene with Kelci Stephenson, leaving my impression to feel that this scene was somewhat disjointed from the rest of the play. In contrast, a friend saw that scene first, and then the less ominous scenes, and found that she heard the screams echo through the other scenes to great effect. This is, of course, one of the downfalls of this sort of production, as perspective can play such a crucial role in the experience.
I also found the promenade to be at once enjoyable, but also frustrating - the lovely volunteers who led us from room to room were helpful, however seeing the other groups move through the house all at once took away from the sense of voyeurism that we might have otherwise felt. The beautiful proximity to the characters' personal moments was broken once we began to move to the next space, encountering our fellow audience members eye to eye. I wonder whether cutting to 3 groups might have limited this somewhat and made for a more immersive experience.
These qualms aside, the cast put forward uniformly strong performances, and captured the period and its (still very relevant) ideas beautifully. On the whole it was an enjoyable production, and given audience enthusiasm for it I hope it will open doors to continued experimentation with the audience-actor relationship in Winnipeg theatre circles.
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