Fefu and her Friends is set in New England in the spring of 1935. The story takes the audience through an amazing entire day beginning in the noon and ending in the evening; it climaxes in a murder scene.
The play is split into three parts. It begins in the living room of Fefu’s country house. Part 2 is set in four different areas of the house: the lawn, the study, the bedroom, and the kitchen. Fornés deconstructs the familiar stage, removing the fourth wall, and scenes are played in multiple locations simultaneously throughout the theater. The audience is divided into groups to watch each scene, then they rotate to the next set, as the scene is repeated until each group has seen all four scenes.
Fefu and her seven female friends gather at Fefu’s house to rehearse a presentation for their charity toward school education. Each character plays a role in this event. Before and after their rehearsal, the women interact with one another, and with male characters, and share their thoughts and feelings about life along with their personal struggles and societal concerns. Fornés portrays these characters as real women, in a shift in her play-writing style to realism and naturalism in settings, characters and situations.