Eddie and May in Sam Shepard FOOL FOR LOVE

Roomful of Eddie and May in FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard

Shepard Staying Power 

It was Halloween at the Samuel J Friedman Theater. A motley audience had gathered for the Manhattan Theatre Club production of FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard. We were there to witness a deadly dance to a song with a haunting rhythm that has played in our heads for more than thirty years.

The women might have worn red dresses, like May (Nina Arianda). The men might have dressed in the manqué of the Marlboro man, like Eddie (Sam Rockwell). But, apart from a few witches and zombies, we were there dressed as ourselves, commiserate fools. And that was enough.

FOOL FOR LOVE is about all of us. It’s that rare play that gets beyond the bickering of the central characters and digs deep into our emotional pants. Caring about some other more than yourself is at once spooky and rapturous, destructive, life-affirming, what we’ve all gone through and go it again with Eddie and May.

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