Fool For Love

After the performance, my mother turned to me and said “Well, forget MTC.” And I nodded in agreement. I went to see a production of Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love” at the Trades Hall and was stunned at the difference between seeing it, and seeing a slick, but also rather sterile, Melbourne Theatre Company production. (What was that Kirsten? Subscribe to MTC if “you want to see the stars?”)

There were no stars last night, no Guy Pearce or Mr Wenham to bring in the crowds. Instead there was a thoroughly absorbing piece of theatre. I wasn’t familiar with Sam Shepard’s play beforehand, but walked away with every intention to go borrow an edition of his “Seven Plays” they have in the university library. I have trouble thinking of other plays from the last thirty years that have been accepted as part of the repertoire so readily: because I’d heard of “Fool For Love” many times, just never seen it. And as much as the situation of the play was of course contrived (a motel room in the Mojave Desert, a man arrives, having driven thousands of miles to find his longtime lover, and the violence of emotion that ensues)—the play was perfectly crafted: as if, given this setup, there was no internal contrivance. And old man in a rocking chair sits at the side of the room, not really there, yet speaking to both Eddie and May, his relationship to them becoming clear as time goes on. When he began speaking I never felt the need for him to have a personal role in their lives, I was happy for him to be an outsiders voice, egging them on, calming them down. Yet as the play unfolded, there was an “ah!” as his character took his place in the story. I feel a fool for not having discovered Shepard earlier: but I won’t let long lapse before I dive into his other works.

The production design was note-perfect. The faded painting on the wall, the old metal bed, the baggy denim skirt May started the play in, the cheap suitcase under the bed—cheap, but not “retro”. The set was small—sitting in the front row, May undressed less than a metre in front of me. The intimacy of the space added to the feeling of absorption: this claustrophobic story unfolding was inescapable. There was no room for space between the actors and the audience.

The performances were strong. I was a little distracted by Joe Clement’s Eddie at times: his walk was peculiar, and I couldn’t figure out if this was a trait of the character of the actor. I mentioned this afterwards, and my mother said it had made her wonder, and then she thought that if he had spent that long driving a truck, he probably would have a peculiar posture. But somehow it struck an awkward note with me, which made me take a little longer to accept Eddie than to accept May. By the time the Old Man and Martin became involved the play was in motion, and they hit their stride immediately.

Karen Day in as May was, in particular, extraordinary: facing Eddie, telling him that she’d always either loved him or not loved him, and that now she didn’t love him—there was something electric in her as she became May, as she tried to escape from the pattern of her life.