THE COWBOY ICONOCLASM that characterizes Sam Shepard’s
plays is a little dusty these days, to be sure—but the raw,
knock-down passions he chronicles have managed to stay relevant even in
an era of online dating, enlightened males, and enforceable restraining
orders. Fool for Love unfolds in a dingy motel room on the edge
of a desert in the American West, a landscape of limitless
possibilities whose characters are nonetheless trapped… by their
own feelings.
May (Val Landrum) and Eddie (Chris Harder) are longtime lovers whose
last split was meant to be final. But in that heedless disregard for a
woman’s feelings that occasionally passes for romance, Eddie has driven
halfway across the country to find May, determined to have her
back.
That Landrum and Harder have a palpable chemistry might be due to
their off-stage relationship—the two are married “in real life,”
though it’s safe to assume their offstage relationship is more
functional than the one they describe here. In May’s motel room, they
circle and bait one another, excavating past misdeeds as the tequila
bottle on the side table steadily empties.
The show’s only off note, and unfortunately it’s a recurring one, is
the pantomimed door slams that seem to punctuate every argument—a
silly device made even sillier by an occasional lack of synchronization
between the motion and the accompanying sound effect. It’s a little
thing, to be sure, but it’s a little thing that stands between the
audience and a seamless immersion into the sweaty, sordid world of
Eddie and May. Maybe that’s a good thing, though—as the couple
paces and rages like a pair of animals who’ve been caged too long, it’s
probably safer not to get too close.