Eddie is smitten with May. Taken. Obsessed. When Fool for Love opens, May is doubled over with intense aching for Eddie. But silent. Eddie is frantic. He’s a rodeo rider and a cowboy, not like the cliches we so often see in theatre. His blood runs thick and dark. Like black sap. Playwright Sam Shepard throws us right into the thick of May and Eddie’s tumultuous romance. Ferocity and tenderness. Eddie has shown up out of the blue, but May doesn’t know how to handle him. Or what she actually wants. He can tell something’s up. He can tell she’s hiding something. She keeps telling him to get lost. May can tell he hasn’t been faithful either. And she’s started drinking again. Her new boyfriend, Martin, is on the way. And an old guy sits on a chair in the corner. Watching.
Like Tennessee Williams and say, William Inge, Shepard takes what might pass for melodrama in lesser hands, and forges a lightning rod. He doesn’t rock the boat, he shakes it to pieces. Shepard takes the traditional love triangle and turns it on its apex. May’s suitor, Martin, is collateral damage in the ferocious attraction between May and Eddie. Martin is sweet, kind, caring and polite, and Shepard shoves him into a pit of grizzly bears. Or maybe just one. You might even say that Eddie is the id, May is the ego, and Martin is the super ego, though Shepard might sneer at this. We’ve seen Eddie, the unpolished ex-lover, May the hostile girlfriend who’s moved on, and Martin the clueless buffoon before, but what we get, what we don’t bargain for, is painful, volcanic attachment that is understandable yet destructive. Shepard was never one to bother with sweet small-talk. For him it’s always bellowing, brawling and bathos. But, yes, it works.
Director Van Quattro guides his fearless cast: Joey Folsom (Eddie) Sasha Maya Ada (May) Braden Socia (Martin) and Chris Messersmith (The Old Man) through the rough waters of Shepard’s perpetually troubled ocean. This kind of storytelling cuts very close to the bone. If it’s done right, it changes the actors, it changes the audience. It changes everyone involved in the project. Classics Theatre has embraced that kind of gorgeous, reckless valor that emboldens you to plunge into the abyss. If you love dangerous, wrenching, powerful theatre. Go.
The Classics Theatre Project presents: Fool For Love. Playing: March 7-31st. Margo Jones at Fair Park. 469-652-6614. 1121 1st Ave, Dallas, Texas 75210. www.theclassicstheatreproject.com