REVIEW: Fool For Love
Image: Kate Betcher, Neil McLeod, Lachlan Ruffy.
Photo: Clare Hawley
Do not miss this classic Sam Shepard play, in which the brutal drama of a twisted love affair is set against the wild expanses of the Mojave Desert outside the desolate motel room where the action takes place.
Eddie (Lachlan Ruffie) travels 2,480 miles, as he says, to find his former lover May (Kate Betcher) and persuade her to return with him to live in a trailer on a farm in Wyoming.
Her adamant refusal provokes Eddie, and the nature of their past relationship is revealed in the excoriating exchanges that follow.
As they tear each other to shreds, the old man on the stage (Neil McLeod) reveals himself to be the father of both lovers, and this revelation deeply shocks the fourth character on stage.
This is the dumbstruck Martin (Joel Horwood), an innocent bystander who turns up to take May to the movies and finds himself caught up in the violent domestic scene.
Limelight designer David Jeffrey does wonders with the third-floor space across which audience members must walk to get to their seats, creating a set which acts as the setting, cage and maze for the actors’ to perform in and around.
In addition to being a playwright, Sam Shepard (1943-2017) was an actor, director, author and screenwriter whose career spanned five decades. He won a large number of awards and was regarded as the greatest American playwright of his generation.
Fool For Love was a finalist for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and deservedly so.
Go see it!
Until Jan 12. 231 Oxford St, Darlinghurst. $28-$38+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.limelightonoxford.com.au
Reviewed by Irina Dunn
