FOOL FOR LOVE AT T.U. STUDIOS

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FOOL FOR LOVE by Sam Shepard

Director Gloria Gifford holds tenuous sway over her four person cast in Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love currently at T.U. Studios in NoHo.  After sitting through a questionable performance of Shepard’s True West in Pasadena recently I felt ‘once burned’ by the playwright.  Shepard’s writing is unmistakably pithy and well nuanced but that show was terrible.  I was not about to be held hostage for over two hours for what should be a fast paced one act.  

Robert May Photo by Mathew Caine

    

In Gifford’s production we are virtually assaulted by Eddie (no nonsense Chad Doreck) and May (sexy Lauren Plaxco) in a love/hate relationship that is at once romantic and repellant: brutal and tender and on again / off again in the blink of an eye.  Could it be that both Eddie and May (actually half siblings) are, in fact, battling factions of Shepard himself, as are the brothers Lee and Austin in True West?  Is the ghost of Eddie and May’s father, The Old Man ( Robert May) another Other who also represents the playwright?   

One issue that I have with this production is the level of drama that slaps us silly in the first few minutes of the play.  I try to imagine  Kathy Baker, who starred as May in the play in 1983 with Ed Harris as Eddie, both winning Obies. I wonder if she drove herself into a frenzy in her interpretation of May?  In this interpretation, both actors keep the energy level over the top for most of the show’s fast paced ninety minutes.  

Enter Martin (well tempered Zach Killian), an honest to gosh neophyte, astonished by the contradictory passions that bristle through Eddie and May.   All he expected to do was to take May to the movies.  Little did he know that she'd removed her undies and donned her skin tight dress in anticipation of her date with him.  Or was it all just to tease half brother Eddie? 

Exposition through The Old Man, a ghost from another dimension,  reveals Truth or Lies? Or, it could all just be a lie of Shepard's mind as the tequila flows; May gets well fondled (adult content: questionable taste) and culminates with the destruction of Eddie’s truck and trailer by a mysterious stranger in the motel parking lot.

FOOL FOR LOVE

By Sam Shepard

T.U. Studios

10943 Camarillo Street

North Hollywood, CA 91607

May 18 through June 23, 2013

Saturdays at 8:00 PM

Sundays at 7:30 PM

Tickets $25 / Seniors and Students $18

310 366 5505

www.tix.com