THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

At: Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport

Phone: (773) 935-6860; $15

Runs through: July 13

It didn't bode well when I arrived at the Athenaeum to see Reverie Theatre Company's production of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. The door to the studio was open; no one was in attendance, so my partner and I entered the theater. No sooner than we had set a couple feet inside than a woman rushed up to us and barked, 'The theater isn't open yet.' Forget about courtesy. Forget about the fact that the entrance was open. The point here is that the amateurish behavior on the part of this staff member portended an amateurish production.

Sam Shepard penned Fool for Love in 1983. The play is a quick, harsh, jab to the heart. Concerning the off again, on again love of May (Eva Wilhelm) and Eddie (Michael Bassett), Fool for Love is a sledgehammer to everything that love can be, and should never be. It's about love as compulsion, obsession, and love as a chain that binds without joy or warmth. Eddie and May can't escape one another … no matter how hard they try. They are roped together by self-loathing and a dark secret that is revealed as the play makes its harsh progress toward an apocalyptic close.

Sam Shepard is great at this kind of stuff: rough and tumble southwesterners trapped in desperate lives. Too bad the same can't be said for Reverie. This production is more like watching scene study in an acting class than it is a fully realized production. A director shapes a play's creative vision, and Chris Pomeroy has failed here. From the set, to the acting, to the pacing … everything here is substandard. Pomeroy never really sets things up so we can suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves in the world the playwright has created. Take the set, also designed by Pomeroy. We're supposed to be in a run-down motel room. Yes, the set is run down, but it has none of the standard trappings of low-rent motel rooms across the United States. No cheesy art on the walls, no radiator under the window, no bed headboard affixed to the wall, no TV suspended from the ceiling, no nightstand, no phone. It's just not real. Pomeroy also hasn't elicited credible performances from his quartet. As the two not-quite star-crossed lovers, Eva Wilhelm and Michael Bassett have mistaken volume for intensity and slamming doors for dramatic power. A good director would have set them straight about modulating their performances, so a shout and a slam, used judiciously, would be that much more powerful. Fool for Love is spare, metaphorical, and its rough talk is lyrical. It is about love. It is about America. And it deserves a better production.