While a movie or photograph can be physically kept until the end of time, the experience of live theater can never be replicated. No matter the show, that performance you watch live will never be recreated in 100% likeness. Two renditions are never the same.
If you’ve never gotten the chance to see a live play before, make “Fool For Love” your first.
This production of playwright and actor Sam Shepard’s classic script at the Steppenwolf Theater is a perfect entry point for any element of live theater. It bridges the line between light comedy and a dramatic cautionary tale, managing to remain entertaining throughout. It gets right to the point, making great use of its concise runtime of little over an hour.
“Fool For Love” is a twisted romance between horse wrangler Eddie (Nick Gehlfuss) and his high school sweetheart May (Caroline Neff), who peel back layers of their relationship through lovesick sob stories and a bottle of tequila.
As drinks are taken, the audience learns more about the two main characters and their messy history as a romantic couple. Every exchange of hateful remarks makes you wonder whether or not they should be together in the first place, but before they can ask themselves that, the bottle falls to the floor.
Debuting in San Francisco in 1983, Shepard’s emotional scripts are best known for their bleak portrayals of a doomed American dream: his screenplay for the film “Paris, Texas” won the Palme D’or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984.
“Fool For Love” captures that feeling of American isolation through its lighting and production design. The flickering motel sign and the sand desert floor — complements of scenic designer Todd Rosenthal — anchors the audience in an unforgiving neo western terrarium.
Primary color schemes and crisp sunset light allows lighting designer Heather Gilbert to add to the sweaty cutthroat tone. Lighting tricks are live theater’s greatest illusion, allowing car headlights and neon glows to effectively bridge the worlds of reality and fiction.
Scenes with the Old Man (Tim Hopper) come off as pretentious at first, some kind of cutaway to an esoteric location, but are just as quickly made into a great comedic bit. He and big-hearted Martin (Cliff Chamberlain) steal the show with their humor, but they never overstay their welcome, much in favor of the overall production.
The best compliment I can give to “Fool For Love” is for what it doesn’t do. It earns its dramatic moments and doesn’t pretend it’s more profound than it is. This is not an amateur theater that forces you to feel the emotions; these are professionals whose work warrants the shock on the audience’s faces.
The direction from Jeremy Herrin brings out emotional performances in Gehlfuss and Neff, building up spades of romantic tension in their questionable love affair. You’re left wondering whether or not they should end up together with cases that can be made from each and every angle. Their fate will never be entirely known, but the ending moments imply that this cycle isn’t ending any time soon.
The taste of the tequila perfectly reflects this story’s bitter and arbitrary ending. If you’re looking to find the parallel conclusion to “Fool For Love,” I’ve gotta recommend “Paris, Texas.” Minus a couple details, they’re a package deal.
It’s a trip to the theater that won’t soon be forgotten, and a reminder that live theater can’t be beat in terms of an immersive experience in any art form.
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