From 1954 to 1957, Forns lived in Paris, studying to become a painter. You Died, first produced by San Francisco's Actor's Workshop in 1963. Roundabout launched the digital theater series last year, in the midst of the pandemic and of the reckoning after George Floyds murder, to spotlight plays by Black playwrights that deserve more attention, inassociationwithBlack Theatre United. Julio dies in her arms. The Legacy of Maria Irene Forns: A Collection of Impressions and Exercises. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art , Sep., 2009, Vol. Seller Inventory # 4910368-n [26], The Conduct of Life (1985) was another Obie winner, as was Abingdon Square (1988), both deemed Best New American Play. In an interview with The Times, Ms. Akalaitis placed Ms. Forns in the pantheon of the great writers like Beckett or Pinter or Caryl Churchill but said she was not as well known as she deserved to be because she simply fell through the cracks.. I never try to reproduce a real character. JUAN: A friend and drummer. Hoffman is remembered as both an influential artist and influential teacher, a path Forns herself would repeat in her lifetime. If you're gay, you're a person. Svich, Caridad. Forns has also received numerous other awards and grants for her oeuvre, including Rockefeller Foundation Grants in 1971 and 1984, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972, National Endowments for the Arts grants in 1974, 1984, and 1985, an American Academy and Institute of Letters and Arts Award in Literature in 1986, and a Playwrights U.S.A. Award in 1986. The play with music follows Sarita on her journey from schoolgirl to young woman and explores themes of sexuality, gender, race, class, immigration and mental health. It was originally performed at INTAR, 420 West End Street in New York City on January 18, 1984. This mind is in the body of a female. Oct. 31, 2018 Mara Irene Forns, a Cuban-born American playwright whose spare, poetic and emotionally forceful works were hallmarks of experimental theater for four decades, died on Tuesday in. 159-176. As time went on, though Ms. Forns never entirely eschewed allegory and elaborate metaphor, her work grew more realistic and psychologically probing. as having a Dada zaniness and topsy-turvy Brechtian morality. She won her first of nine Obies that year. But I understood the world in which it took place, I got the rhythm. Always an iconoclast, each of Forns's plays was its own world, all vastly different from each other. After giving birth, Sarita runs away from home, promising that she'll send money to her son Melo. [4], A documentary feature about Forns called The Rest I Make Up by Michelle Memran was made in collaboration with Forns. Moreover, on personal and artistic levels, her lesbian identity has been central to her art. Maria Irene Forns, (born May 14, 1930, Havana, Cubadied October 30, 2018, New York, New York, U.S.), Cuban-born American dramatist. Sarita is a play/musical by Maria Irene Fornes. But let me defer for a moment to Caridad Svich, who singled out her reading of Sarita as not only turning her on to Forns for the first time but also bolstering her own decision to become a playwright: Here was a writer crafting a tale of class, power, sensuality, and love in a manner that was fresh, rigorous, playful, daring, and surprising. A key way to view Latina plays today is through the foundational frame of playwright and teacher Maria Irene Fornes, who has trained a generation of theatre artists and transformed the field of American theatre. [2] Both of the New York Times senior theater critics were enthusiastic in their reviews of Promenade. Dabney won the 1984 Obie Award for her performance. Do not think about where your character is going. 10 (Fall, 1984), pp. Barnes, Clive. For example, the play Sarita reflects on what it means to be an American in a particularly Cuban context, and yet still feels applicable to the issues of immigrants as a whole. Ms. Forns, who was called Irene by friends, is survived by 17 nieces and nephews. 1985 Obie Award for Best New American Play: 1986 Playwrights U.S.A. Award for translation of Virgilio Piera's. What interests me is the mental and organic life of an individual. a series of four connected one-act plays that follows members of a family from 1938 until 1989 as they survive in a difficult, realistic vision of America. Ms. Forns in 1999 at a rehearsal of her one-act plays Mud and Drowning, presented by the Signature Theater Company as part of a season devoted to her work. Forns became a recognized force in both Hispanic-American and experimental theatre in New York. Among the playwrights Forns taught are Migdalia Cruz, Caridad Svitch, Nilo Cruz, Anne Garca-Romero, Karen Zacaras, Elaine Romero, Cusi Cram, Luis Alfaro, Eduardo Machado and many others. Mara Irene Forns Forns was born on May 14, 1930, in Havana, Cuba, to Carlos Luis and Carmen Hismenia Forns. As a teacher, though, she spoke of the importance of training the next generation of Latinx playwrights, telling Bomb in 1984. The Forns Institute, an initiative of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), aims to preserve and to amplify Mara Irene Forns's legacy as a teacher, mentor and artist, through workshops, convenings and advocacy. In Mara Irene Forns 1984 musical Sarita presented in a rare staged reading free online through October 16th as part of Roundabouts Refocus Project we first meet the title character (portrayed by Darilyn Castillo) as a 13-year-old parochial school student in the Bronx in 1939. Maria Irene Forns, (born May 14, 1930, Havana, Cubadied October 30, 2018, New York, New York, U.S.), Cuban-born American dramatist. Marranca, Bonnie. The final scene takes place in a mental hospital in which Sarita is a patient. What It Means to Be Both Cuban and American. The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Feb. 2000. After her father's death . The two others available through October 16:THE OXCARTbyRen Marqus, and EL CORRIDO DE CALIFORNIAby Fausto Avendao. Maria Irene Fornes was a vital and dominant figure in the American dramatic landscape. Her friends, family, and her theatre community worked to provide her with a comfortable and supportive living environment. , Winter, 1978, Vol. The Legacy of Maria Irene Forns: A Collection of Impressions and Exercises. Maria Irene Fornes: Plays is a collection of four plays by one of the most distinguished playwrights in America. FELA: Her mother; age range: 35-43. While the Cuban Revolution of 1959, led by Fidel Castro, hadnt yet occurred, the issues that caused it were brewing during her early years. Her plays range widely in subject-matter, but often depict characters with . This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-Irene-Fornes, The New York Times - Mara Irene Forns, Writer of Spare, Poetic Plays, Dies at 88. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Taking up painting, she studied for a time with the Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann, whose push-pull theory of painting that the juxtaposition of abstract forms and their surrounding space creates a sense of depth and movement influenced her work as a playwright and director. Remembering Mara Irene Forns. Dramatists Guild, Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., 31 Oct. 2018. They fall in love and marry. KidzSearch Safe Wikipedia for Kids. The play considered her first as a playwright was There! [11][12][13], Forns's first step toward playwriting involved translating letters she brought with her from Cuba that were written to her great-grandfather from a cousin in Spain. In addition to directing most of her own plays, Forns also directed productions of plays by Calderon, Ibsen, Chekhov, Leo Garcia, Cherre Moraga and Caridad Svich. After her father died in 1945, she moved with her mother and sister to the United States, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951. Her family moved to the United States in 1945, and she became a painter before beginning to write plays in the early 1960s. "[3] In a 2013 interview, Tony Kushner said: "She had terrifyingly high standards and was terribly blunt about what others did with her work. Forns brought her experience as a visual artist to her work as a director, collaborating closely with designers (and sometimes designing herself) to create stage spaces that often felt two-dimensional, with precise placement of actors, objects, architecture, and design elements. She had had Alzheimers disease for some time. She would continue to use found objects as inspiration for her plays: second-hand furniture, a servants diary, and a language-learning record all became the starting point for plays. And it is felt with as much power as the words they speak. ", As a teacher, though, she spoke of the importance of training the next generation of Latinx playwrights, telling, In 1999-2000 Forns was the subject of a season-long retrospective at Signature Theatre, which produced four of her works: a double bill of. When playwrights of color have the chance to fully participate in American theatre and the liberty to express themselves creatively, the American theatre is a better place. 8, No. [17] It lasts about an hour and is constructed of fragmentary moments, each scene just long enough to establish a mood. In 1985 she told The Village Voice, What draws me to theater is the adventure. Forns wrote characters of all kinds. Svich, Caridad, et al. I have never once in writing a play given a thought about what the scenes about or what I want to say to the audience., Forns quickly became a force in the emerging Off-Off-Broadway theatre scene of the early 60s. Whereas contemporary playwrights developed a signature style, the critical factor identifying a Forns . Largely an auto-didact, the first of her over three dozen plays, Tango Palace, was produced in 1963. Her teenage years are marked by men coming and going from her life, an early pregnancy, and a volatile love affair with Julio that continues into adulthood. What interests me is the mental and organic life of an individual. Her father, Carlos, a low-level Civil Service worker, died shortly before she moved with her mother and a sister to New York City in 1945. in 1990. In 2000, Forns told, Forns's career as a playwright was sparked by several events. The position of things, the space between the character and the wall, the distance from the back, from the left, from the chairthese are not things you can interpret in a psychological way. Fornss friend and filmmaker Michelle Memran documented Fornss creative life through her battle with dementia in the 2018 film. If I write something about Hispanic people, it's because I am attracted to writing about it. Though she had previously directed some of her own work, Forns shifted to directing all of her own premieres after a 1973 production of her 1968 play Mollys Dream, with music by Cosmos Savage. The play, Ms. Fornss final one, was commissioned and given its premiere by the Signature Theater Company in Manhattan, culminating an entire season devoted to her work. She was also co-founder of the Padua Hills Festival and Workshop, which produced new, site-specific works in Claremont, California, from 1978-1995. . Compiled by Elizabeth Horan, Accountancy and Film, Television & Theatre, Class of 2021, Fornes Season while Playwright-in-Residence, https://www.tcg.org/store/productdetail/716, https://www.tcg.org/Default.aspx?TabID=251&productId=6474189, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/theater/review-the-many-unusual-stages-of-fefu-and-her-friends.html, www.vulture.com/2019/11/reviews-fefu-and-her-friends-and-a-bright-room-called-day.html, www.wnyc.org/story/review-fefu-and-her-friends-showcases-women-they-are/, 1990, CUNY Spotlight Series with Ed Wilson, Part 1, 1990, CUNY Spotlight Serieswith Ed Wilson, Part 2, Mara Irene Forns The Forns Institute, AMERICAN THEATRE | Maria Irene Fornes, World Builder, Obie Award for Best New American Play (1985, 1988), Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement (1982), Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada (1972), Obie Award for Distinguished Plays (1965), Lucille Lortel Award for Playwrights Sidewalk Inductee (2019) (posthumous). shaped her understanding of herself as a playwright, I never try to reproduce a real character. "[10] She lived with Sohmers in Paris for three years, and after their relationship ended Forns returned to New York City in 1957. If you're gay, you're a person. [22][23] Forns called it "a pro-feminine play rather than a feminist play",[24] while one critic praises its exploration of the possibilities and risks of women's friendships. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she has continued working in . Her experimental works led the avant-garde of off-off-Broadway; many of her plays got their start at La MaMa Experimental Theatre . Locally in New York City, as the director of the INTAR Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Lab in the 1980s and early '90s, she mentored a generation of Latin playwrights, including Cherre Moraga, Migdalia Cruz, Nilo Cruz, Caridad Svich, and Eduardo Machado. She passed away in Manhattan in 2018 at the age of 88. opened Off-Broadway at INTAR Theatre, on West 42nd Street in Theater Row, on January 18, 1984. She merely wrote from her gut, creating highly theatrical, impactful and visceral work., In late August, the Public Theater in Manhattan staged a 12-hour marathon of staged readings of Ms. Fornss work, led by the director JoAnne Akalaitis. Scott T. Cummings considers comic sketches, opera libretti and unpublished pieces, as well as her best-known plays, in order to trace the evolution of her dramaturgy from the whimsical Off-Off Broadway . She had exchanged letters with her own brother in Cuba for 30 years, and in the play a young man in Cuba reads from his letters to his sister, a dancer in New York. The Obie Awards do not use set categories but are adapted as circumstances require. The play is considered to be feminist by critics and scholars, in that it offers a woman's perspective on female characters and their thoughts, feelings, and relationships. Forns wrote some of her most ambitious and celebrated works in the 1980s: , a love triangle about an impoverished, rural womans quest for self-improvement through education; , about a young Latinas experience of desire in the Bronx in the 1940s; , about the women in a violent military officers home during a brutal dictatorship in an unnamed Latin American country; and Pulitzer Prize-nominated. Her plays range widely in subject-matter, but often depict characters with aspirations that belie their disadvantages. But a young soldier named Mark stops her and falls in love with her. More than just a prolific playwright, Forns was also a director and a teacher. When we came here, there was no sadness whatsoever. Mara Irene Forns was a prolific writer and an iconic figure in American theater. Cite this page as follows: "Analyze the fluidity in gender identities in the plays The Conduct of Life and Sarita by Maria Irene Fornes."eNotes Editorial, 15 Nov. 2021, https://www.enotes.com . Miss Fornss lyrics, like her book, seem to have a sweetly irrelevant relevance, Clive Barnes wrote in his New York Times review of the 1969 production. Working Off-Off-Broadway I can do a play as often as I want, as often as my endurance permits. Her greatest influence may have come through her legendary playwriting workshops, which she taught to aspiring writers across the globe. Her romantic partners over the years included the writer Susan Sontag and the writer and artists model Harriet Sohmers Zwerling. I'm writing about how people deal with things as an individual, not as a member of a type. She looks much younger than when I last saw her, dressed now in a thrift-store silk navy coat, circa 1930s, and a black wool cap tilted gently to the left. Forns and the Magic in the Room. AMERICAN THEATRE, Theatre Communications Group, 7 Nov. 2018. Sarita opened Off-Broadway at INTAR Theatre, on West 42nd Street in Theater Row, on January 18, 1984. Mara Irene Forns (May 14, 1930 - October 30, 2018) was a Cuban-American playwright and director. Mud, first produced in 1983 at the Padua Hills Playwright's Festival in California,[25] explores the impoverished lives of Mae, Lloyd and Henry, who become involved in a love triangle. Desire and betrayal lead to frustration and depression and anger, and ultimately to tragedy. She later told an interviewer: "I didn't speak any French at all. "[6][14][15] Their relationship ended in 1963.[16]. Largely an auto-didact, the first of her over three dozen plays, Tango Palace, was produced in 1963. Lighting designer and frequent Forns collaborator Anne Millitello won an Obie that year for Sustained Excellence of Lighting Design, and Forns herself won for both playwriting and direction. From 1981-1992 Forns was the director of the International Arts Relations (INTAR) Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Laboratory, which was a national program to develop the writing of Hispanic Playwrights. The show made its debut at the Judson Poets Theater in Greenwich Village and had a successful Off Broadway run in 1969 and a well-received revival in 1983. The Successful Life of 3 and Promenade followed in 1965. Mara Irene Forns was born in Havana on May 14, 1930. The play tells the story of the fiery-tempered Sarita Fernandez, who is gradually torn apart by her sexual desires and moral values to the point of insanity. 84. Obie Awards, American Theatre Wing, n.d. Alfaro, Luis. Her productions were unforgettable. Ms. Forns held a variety of jobs, including one in a factory that made medals for the military. The playwright Mara Irene Forns in 2000. "[19], She came close to having her work performed on Broadway in April 1966, when Jerome Robbins directed The Office starring Elaine May. The Wild Invention of Fefu and Her Friends and A Bright Room Called Day. Vulture, Vulture, 26 Nov. 2019. I'm writing about how people deal with things as an individual, not as a member of a type.". World Premiere in 1984 at INTAR in New York City. 28-30. , Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., 31 Oct. 2018. That is the greatest riches I can ask for.. 107 Theatre Building The New York Times critic hailed Fornss writing in Promenade as having a Dada zaniness and topsy-turvy Brechtian morality. She won her first of nine Obies that year. As playwright:Letters from Cuba,Manual for a Desperate Crossing,Sarita,The Summer in Gossensass,What of the Night?,Fefu and Her Friends. She passed away in Manhattan in 2018 at the age of 88. 1988 Obie Award for Best New American Play: 1990 New York State Governor's Arts Award, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 16:41. An absurdist two-character play, it was later renamed Tango Palace and produced in 1964 at New York City's Actors Studio. They dont document how they think, how they see. Later, as her work became less surreal and more resonant, she became known for her sparse dialogue; brief, seemingly disjointed scenes; emotionally fraught, often threatening circumstances; and her use of strikingly suggestive set designs and choreography. For most of the second act, Sarita struggles internally with her love for her new husband, Mark, and her lingering passion and desire for Julio. When young Sarita sees her crush, Julio, flirting with other women, she vows to do the same with men, and she becomes pregnant. In 2000, Forns told The New York Times. About. The Obies cited three of her plays that were produced that year. Theater: Promenade, Wickedly Amusing Musical. The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 June 1969. In 1985 she told, , What draws me to theater is the adventure. Fornss numerous awards include nine Obies, and in 1972 she received a Guggenheim fellowship. But Fornes was so unhappy with how the production misrepresented her vision that she exercised her contractual right to withdraw the script. Reflection on Contribution to Anti-Racist Theatre. Forns died at the Amsterdam Nursing Home in Manhattan on October 30, 2018. [28] Letters From Cuba was recognized by the Obie Awards with a special citation for Forns. Sarita (Maria Irene Fornes) Scope and Contents From the Sub-Series: This series contains texts of short stories; excerpts from larger prose works; scripts for derived works; excerpts from plays; and complete texts of short plays. Maria Irene Fornes : Plays : Mud, the Danube, the Conduct of Life, Sarita Fornes, Maria Irene Published by PAJ Publications (2001) ISBN 10: 0933826834 ISBN 13: 9780933826830 New Softcover Quantity: 5 Seller: GreatBookPrices (Columbia, MD, U.S.A.) Rating Seller Rating: Book Description Condition: New. 28-30. [20], In Fefu and Her Friends (1977), Forns begins and ends with the audience seated as a single group facing a traditional stage. Theater World Friends Bring Ailing Playwright Closer to Home. The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2013. She also cited the 1958 Off-Broadway production of, , an adaptation of a chapter from James Joyces, that featured Zero Mostel, as another inspiring experience. Afro-Cuban religion and nostalgia for Cuba provide the drama's background. 106- 111. , Fall, 1984, No. She would continue to use found objects as inspiration for her plays: second-hand furniture, a servants diary, and a language-learning record all became the starting point for plays. FERNANDO: Fela's tenant; age range: 60-68. , Theatre Communications Group, 7 Nov. 2018. [14], In 1959, about the time she was working on La Viuda, Forns entered into a romantic relationship with the writer Susan Sontag. Plays - Maria Irene Fornes 1986 Sarita: Tells the story of the fiery-tempered Sarita Fernandez, who is gradually torn apart by her sexual desires and moral values to the point of insanity. Writing a decade later in the journal. Mara Irene Forns (May 14, 1930 - October 30, 2018) was a Cuban-American playwright, theater director, and teacher who worked in off-Broadway and experimental theater venues in the last four decades of the twentieth century. Paperback ($24.95), Ebook ($24.95) Buy. The pair clasps hands as Sarita inquires fearfully about her future and "what they will do" to her in the asylum. Fela at first thinks her tenant, Fernando (an older man), has raped Sarita, but Sarita confessed that she'd been seeing many men and boys and she doesn't know who gave her the baby. Similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, this permanent monument in New York is dedicated to great, off-Broadway playwrights. Kozinn, Allan. In 1996 Forns rewrote Part II two as a single-set performance, in order to accommodate smaller theatres, while directing the play at Muhlenberg College in PA. Green, Jesse. Sarita is in a constant struggle between love and lust, love winning out in the end. It might not be ideal, but you can work here and earn a living. Corrections? That is the argument of this important new study, the first to assess Fornes's complete body of work. Forns wrote some of her most ambitious and celebrated works in the 1980s: Mud, a love triangle about an impoverished, rural womans quest for self-improvement through education; Sarita, about a young Latinas experience of desire in the Bronx in the 1940s; The Conduct of Life, about the women in a violent military officers home during a brutal dictatorship in an unnamed Latin American country; and Pulitzer Prize-nominated What of the Night?, a series of four connected one-act plays that follows members of a family from 1938 until 1989 as they survive in a difficult, realistic vision of America. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Her productions were unforgettable. Her mother Carmen remained a presence in her life. That is more in Fornss story than in composer Leon Odenzs score, which is lively, eclectic, Latin-tinged, accompanied by piano and bongos although there is an aria by Castillo that is astonishing in its force and its feeling. Over the course of a day, these women address complex issues of gender, sexuality, class and mental health. Tax ID Number: 13-6192346. Forns directed the original production so that the four scenes of the plays middle portion are played simultaneously, in different areas of the theatre, and the audience physically rotates through the space, an innovative concept at the time. (later retitled The Successful Life of Three) and the musical Promenade for which she wrote the book and lyrics. The louse Julio (Diego Guevara) stays in Saritas life despite her many efforts to escape him. But also because, in painting, composition and juxtaposition are very important, while in playwriting the tendency for literalness makes it difficult to develop a sophisticated sense of structure. She was a favorite of many critics, theater scholars and fellow playwrights, who often declared that her achievements far outstripped her fame. Forns was posthumously awarded a place on the Lucille Lortel Playwrights sidewalk. The celebrated playwright, director, translator, lyricist, and seven-time Obie Award winner, has been an influential voice in American theatre for more than four decades and a highly-regarded teacher of playwriting. Mara Irene Forns Representative Plays: Abington Square (1987) The Danube (1982) Fefu and Her Friends (1977) Bio: Forns was born on May 14, 1930 in Havana, Cuba. Her other later plays included Mud (1983), about a woman whose attempt to escape her life amid stifling ignorance on a remote farm is violently derailed; The Danube, an early-1980s story of a sweet romance that shrivels, as if by a poisoned world; The Conduct of Life (1985), about the savage home life of a Latin American soldier whose job is torturing prisoners; Abingdon Square (1987), about a young womans emerging self-awareness, both sexual and spiritual; Enter the Night (1993), a play about mortality and personal responsibility set in Manhattan during the AIDS plague; and Letters From Cuba (2000), a sweet-tempered autobiographical play based on decades of letters that Ms. Forns had received from a brother who never left Havana. Her plays include La Viuda/The Widow,Tango Palace, Fefu and Her Friends, Sarita, The Conduct of Life Manual for a Desperate Crossing (Balseros/Rafters), and Letters from Cuba. comes and starts working on it and tells you how he is going to do things. Maria Irene Forns was born on May 14, 1930, in Havana, Cuba, to Carlos Luis and Carmen Hismenia Forns. She has received eight Obie awards in such categories as distinguished playwriting and direction and best new play for Promenade (1965), The Successful Life of 3, Fefu and Her Friends, The Danube (1982), Mud, Sarita (1984), The Conduct of Life, and Abingdon Square (1987). Forns has held teaching and advisory positions at several universities and theatrical festivals, such as the Theatre for the New City, the Padua Hills Festival, and the INTAR (International Arts Relations) program in New York City. It is aesthetic but it is also spiritual. Set in a house in New England in 1935, the eight female characters rehearse a presentation theyre planning to give for a charity event. Forns acted as the director for many of her subsequent works, including There! It is a major port city, commercial hub, and the largest metropolis in the Caribbean. bombmagazine.org/articles/maria-irene-fornes/, Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/103.0.0.0 Safari/537.36. Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarita_(play)&oldid=1120045786, This page was last edited on 4 November 2022, at 20:28. Like Chekhov, whom she acknowledged as a chief influence, she concentrated on characters, some more astute than others, who are bent on self-examination, seeking to confirm their dignity. The Widow, Fornss first professionally produced play, was staged in 1961. She was also a master of stage silence.. She joined the Actors Studio Playwrights Unit and studied with acting teacher Lee Strasberg, from whom she learned to approach theatre-making, as she told The Brooklyn Rail in 2002, Moment to moment. The production includes violence, strong language, partial nudity, and the use of a weapon. She does not know by whom. Alker, Gwendolyn. This examination focuses on an investigation of playwright Maria Irene Fornes' repertoire, in the context of her style, through producing and directing her 1983 play Mud. Omissions? A signature work of feminist theater set in the 1930s, the play portrayed eight women who, gathered in the home of their friend Fefu (middle-aged, loving, brilliant and tormented, as one reviewer described her), reveal their rivalries, anxieties and sympathies amid the unfolding of multiple conflicts. One night, after Sarita and Julio have sex, Julio begins harassing Sarita, and tells her that if she wants to keep the affair hidden from Mark, she needs to pay him. Memran, Michelle. The Conduct of Life (1985) . The play is noted also for its themes of womens sexuality, feminism, and control. Hoffmans work synthesized the techniques he had studied and practiced in EuropeCubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and Surrealisminto what became Abstract Expression. She wrote more than 40 stage works and directed her own works as well as classic drama. Confronting Antisemitism on Broadway. In 1999-2000 Forns was the subject of a season-long retrospective at Signature Theatre, which produced four of her works: a double bill ofMud alongside Drowning, her adaptation of a Chekov short story; Enter the Night, a 1993 play; and a premiere of what would be her final play, Letters from Cuba, inspired by her correspondence with her eldest brother, who remained in Cuba throughout his life.In her final years, Forns had Alzheimers disease. Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard, and Edward Albee credit Forns as an inspiration and influence. 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