INTERVIEW: LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ to try to do it in this production, because it’s going to be 264 people and that’s a huge challenge—is how to maintain the intimacy of the scenes, but also get people into their bodies. Because I think that’s also something that’s really important inside of the work: there’s an awareness of the body. There's an awareness of how we exist in space. And in the same way that she doesn’t allow for any kind of easy categorization, when you're forced or asked to move around that space, then you realize that time doesn’t operate linearly, right? That there's a multiplicity of times as multiple people have conversations. And all of those things are actually happening simultaneously, and every audience member is going to have a different relationship to the show based on what room they start in and which one they end in… and that’s actually kind of amazing. That’s, in some way, how life works. When you’re at a party, you walk into one room and there's one experience happening, and you walk into another room and there’s another experience happening. And those two things are equal in terms of their experience, but they exist simultaneously. And that, for me, is really exciting to experience: to have a visceral experience of time, operating in different rooms. In an interview, Fornés describes this as “profeminine” as opposed to feminist. And I thought, that’s a really interesting distinction. And I think about the rooms that we operate inside of: the study, a place of learning; the kitchen, a place of sustenance; the bedroom, a place of intimacy; and who we operate with and who we see inside of those rooms, I think, can have meaning. MORGAN JENNESS And this garden is a tropical
garden, right? LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ Yes. We’re keeping the
tropical [aspect]—that’s one of the design elements that was important for us. And we were like, “Hmm, we want wallpaper.” We want there to be kind of a vibrancy involved in each room. MORGAN JENNESS You have a really wonderful
history of collaboration with several designers. 20
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MORGAN JENNESS
Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with your designers and design? LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ I love designers. [Laughs] MORGAN JENNESS Yeah. I can tell. LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ And that’s another thing
that inspired me, reading about Fornés’ life, is that she started as a painter. And I was like, “Of course she did,” because she cares about image— MORGAN JENNESS And she studied in Provincetown. LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ Oh my god. MORGAN JENNESS In her early 20s. Before she
wrote with Susan Sontag, she was studying art in Provincetown. Jennifer Lim (Cindy) in Theatre for a New Audience's production of Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.