“With “Fefu and Her Friends,” the new American Conservatory Theater under Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon has arrived.
It’s audacious. It’s ambitious. It’s weird and intellectual, yet welcoming, playful and imaginative. It’s art that asks much and doesn’t apologize, but helps you rise to its challenge and pays dividends when you do. It’s art that’s worthy of a city as dynamic and inventive as San Francisco.
Porter’s Julia, in a solo, bedridden scene somehow bridging wake, seance, confession and confrontation, makes ghosts feel as real as cold breath on the back of your neck, all with the audience seated just inches away from her.”
—Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle, April, 2022
“a mesmerizing Lisa Anne Porter”
—Chad Jones, Theatre Dogs, April , 2022
“I also very much enjoyed Lisa Anne Porter’s mix of strength and vulnerability as wheelchair-bound Julia, whose sort of fever dream sets the denouement in motion.”
—Tim Munson, Broadway World, April, 2022
“In another piece of power, Lisa Ann Porter pounds a through line of threat towards Fefu from the moment she fights her hallucinations (assisted mightily by the sublime soundscape of Jake Rodriguez, whose playlist is more like a slaylist). A living, pulsing set of breaths that build mightily to a harrowing end are an exercise in Porter’s ability to reach a divine level of transcendence.”
—David Chavez, Bay Area Plays, April 2022
“Lisa Anne Porter’s portrayal of Julia is one of the evening’s most arresting performances…. At her bedside during our tour, we witness an unsettling, frightful hallucination of Julia that provides more insights into the dominating male world that the playwright seems to be reminding us exists more than in just nightmares. As the evening progresses, Lisa Anne Porter’s Julia provides us with a disconcerting, climatic showdown with Catherine Castellanos’ Fefu that proves the star power of both actors.”