Love makes us do crazy things

Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love is a battle between lovers in a dingy motel room somewhere in the American West. Eddie (Chris Harder) and May (Val Landrum) compress a years-long argument into the span of 70 minutes. The pair have known each other since high school and have been in and out of love ever since, with Eddie leaving May every few years to fend for herself in their trailer—but always returning to try to take her away to a new life. May observes that nothing ever changes, yet somehow she has her suitcase packed to go with him.

Fool for Love observes one of these perpetual fights, after Eddie has driven 2,480 miles to find May after cheating on her with a famous actress (May calls her “the Countess”). The play focuses on describing the emotional impact that May and Eddie have on one another.

“I get sick every time you show up, and I get sick every time you leave,” May said, in between screaming at Eddie to leave. It’s this eternal torment that gives Fool for Love its shape and substance. In a very real way, May and Eddie are stuck with one another. Not even the revelation that they share a father can drive them apart.

Their absent father is played by a spectral observer (Tim Stapleton) who occasionally interjects. He has lived a double life, having two wives whom he tried for his entire life to keep separate from one another, living with one for a few months at a time, and then disappearing to reside with the other one. Shepard’s script elegantly describes the impact that his actions had on his children and their mothers. May, in particular, is reliving her mother’s experience by remaining with Eddie, and her recitation of her mother’s pleas for May to avoid making the same mistakes is one of the play’s most moving moments.

May and Eddie also give Shepard a canvas to express his own passion for the West. Eddie straps on spurs and uses a lasso to express his emotions, torn between the woman he loves and the open range he craves. Being May’s lover is against Eddie’s nature, and the contrast between what Eddie offers and what May actually needs is apparent when May’s new boyfriend, Martin (Spencer Conway) comes to pick her up for a date.
   
Martin’s presence gives Eddie the chance to stake his claim on May, and to display some of the qualities that May finds herself attracted to. When Eddie is vulnerable, he becomes lovable, and the dilemma of these “fools for love” is thrown into stark relief. Eddie’s love for May is primal, urgent and a fact of their lives. In running from Eddie, May is running from herself. They have a connection that cannot be severed, and Harder and Landrum thrillingly expose the depth and insanity of this connection. They have a real chemistry (perhaps the result of being married offstage) and use Stapleton and Conway effectively in their performances.

This production is truly excellent and a welcome showcase for its cast and Sam Shepard’s vision.