Hedy Weiss: Theater Reviews
Superb Actors in a Tired Sam Shepard Play at Steppenwolf: Review
(left to right) Nick Gehlfuss and ensemble member Caroline Neff in Steppenwolf Theatre’s revival of “Fool for Love.” (Michael Brosilow)
Take a seat in Steppenwolf’s mainstage theater and enter the world of “Fool for Love,” Sam Shepard’s 75-minute play dating from 1983.
The setting, ideally designed by Todd Rosenthal, is a decidedly shabby motel room located somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Occupying the room is May (Caroline Neff), an attractive, sexy, but somewhat frazzled woman who is getting a visit from a former lover, Eddie (Nick Gehlfuss), a high energy guy who wants her to settle down with him in a trailer home on a farm somewhere in Wyoming.
The two were lovers in high school a good number of years earlier. But what makes them marked by something far from commonplace is that they had different mothers but the same father (the Old Man, played by Tim Hopper, who, throughout the play is seated somewhere beyond the motel).
(left to right) Ensemble member Cliff Chamberlain, Nick Gehlfuss and ensemble members Tim Hopper and Caroline Neff in Steppenwolf Theatre’s revival of “Fool for Love.” (Michael Brosilow)
In addition, for all the still palpable attraction of some sort that still exists between the two former lovers, May (whose mother died by suicide) is feverishly torn about trusting Eddie and committing herself to him again. And, as it happens, she even has a somewhat casual date at this particular moment with a guy named Martin (Cliff Chamberlain). He is a very different and somewhat more haggard looking man, who drops by to take her on a date and can’t quite make sense of the goings on.
It is May and Eddie who drive the show (which has been staged with high energy by English director Jeremy Herrin). And they are terrific, vocally powerful actors who also are wonderfully impressive in their physicality. Yet on some level this play really doesn’t have very much to say aside from the fact that the intense interplay of a man and a woman can wreak havoc.
Fools for love, to be sure.
“Fool for Love” runs through March 23 at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. For tickets, visit steppenwolf.org or phone 312-335-1650.
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