Shepard twists our expectations by making Martin gentle and curious, more interested in understanding these strange lovers than in establishing his own turf. Into this volatile situation comes May's date for the evening, Martin (Todd S. They're acting, not performing acrobatics. Nothing seems set up or awkward, and the antagonists actually fight in character.
With choreographer Peggy McGrath, director Eric Lucas has staged some of the most convincing violent action I've ever seen onstage. There's a lot of bouncing off the walls, the sort of thing that looks stagy in a large theater but can make you jump in a small one. Passionate, doomed lovers, May and Eddie fight like angry dogs. As the play begins, the fool has just made the mistake of trying to come back to her. May (Amy McWilliams) has ended up here after being deserted for the umpteenth time by her lover, Eddie (Mark A.
The Venetian blinds are dirty and broken, the walls are stained from who knows how many drunken parties and fights, and at some point there seems to have existed a tacky bullfighting mural that has been inadequately painted over. Set designer George Lucas's motel room is so run-down that you find yourself scanning its corners for roaches. "Fool for Love" is the emblematic dingy-motel-room play, a genre much exploited by contemporary playwrights. It lets you go back in time and sense how Shepard must have struck audiences before he was a star, when he was basically still a small-theater treasure, unself-consciously exuberant and gifted. An argument can be made that audiences should always see Shepard like this: up close and closed in, trapped in a small space with an explosive play.įor financial reasons, this almost never happens, so the Keegan production is something of a gift. In the unlikely space of a tiny black-box theater in an Arlington high school, the Keegan Theatre is putting on a "Fool for Love" that's pure celebration of playwright Sam Shepard's bumptious theatricality.
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