Steve Camara and Emily Carlson in Fool for Love. Photo by Jean Gottlieb
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Playwright: Sam Shepard
At: Signal Ensemble at the Chopin, 1543 W. Division
Phone: 773-347-1350; $10-$20
Runs through: Sept. 2
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
The story in Sam Shepard's play is already under way when we arrive at it, not unlike the drive-in movie our lovesick hero remembers glimpsing from a faraway field on the night that would change his life. As the curtain rises, we discover Eddie, a broken-down rodeo cowboy, in pursuit of his beloved May, a honky-tonk angel with decidedly ambivalent feelings toward her obsessed swain. As they waffle between come-hither and go-yonder in the motel room to which May has fled, the ghost of the runaway father they share materializes to reaffirm his hold over both their destinies. Oh, and a mysterious driver, who might be Eddie's most recent ex-girlfriend, trashes his truck while May's latest would-be suitor looks on in horrified fascination.
So what is Shepard trying to tell us? That sparse rural populations lead to gene-crossed lovers? That philandering dads are selfish sonsabitches whose children are doomed to repeat their progenitor's misdeeds for all eternity? That love makes helpless slaves of everybody? And are Eddie and May really related, or is this a confabulation that they, themselves, have set up as a romantic obstacle to a boring happy-ever-after? Conversely, is their very attraction predicated on the forbidden thrills suggested by incest? Is this whole damn yarn simply a pastiche of every country & western song ever written? Audiences in 2007 are as free to draw their own conclusions as they were when Fool For Love premiered in 1983.
'This play is to be performed relentlessly without a break,' Shepard exhorts in the first words of his script. Signal Ensemble director Ronan Marra takes the author at his word, as does a tightly-focused cast led by Aaron Snook and Simone Roos as the hopelessly-entwined sweethearts ( with Tom Lally, playing the spectral paterfamilias, generating a menacing presence ) . Melania Lancy's scenic design encapsulates shabby motor-court decor right down to the algae-green shower curtain; Anthony Ingram's sound design resurrects such venerable careless-love classics as Why, Baby, Why?; Laura M. Dana's costumes reflect the sun-baked textures of Shepard's southwestern desert regions; and Julie E. Ballard's nimble split-second lighting effects hit every mark mandated by the enigmatic text. Taken together, these elements work to deliver a coherent clutter-free production bringing the action home in a robust, riveting and, yes, 'relentless' 50 minutes without a second wasted.