Holed up in a seedy motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert, two former lovers unpack the deep secrets and dark desires of their tangled relationship, passionately tearing each other apart. Beaten down by ill-fated love and a ruthless struggle for identity, can they ultimately live with, or without, each other? Led by director Daniel Aukin (Back Back Back at MTC; 4,000 Miles), Tony Award winner Nina Arianda (Venus in Fur at MTC, Born Yesterday)and Sam Rockwell (A Behanding in Spokane, The Way Way Back) bring an explosive intensity to Sam Shepard's (Buried Child, True West) landmark myth of the new Wild West.
Everything is in place for what really ought to have been a deeply scary, even deliriously entertaining visit back to midcareer Shepard-land. We have Tony winner Nina Arianda as an impossibly slinky, outrageously bold May and Sam Rockwell as a dirt-kicking Eddie who makes the most out of cleaning his rifle and can lasso a cheap dinette chair until you almost feel sorry for it. In fact, Rockwell doesn't just rope the furniture in director Daniel Aukin's hardworking physical production. The actor, who has clearly been practicing, also lassos Arianda...Although Arianda and Rockwell have the looks, the presence and the guts, there isn't the down-and-dirty chemistry that makes the fate of the lovers' long and conflicted relationship feel inevitable and dangerous...Suffice it to say that the violence feels phony and it's hard to get overheated about the fate of the characters.
Love as a battlefield on which nobody wins has seldom been mapped as thrillingly as it is in Daniel Aukin's definitive revival of this bruising drama from 1983. That's in large part because as the inexorably coupled May and Eddie, Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell exude the sort of chemistry from which nuclear meltdowns are made. But every ingredient that's gone into this Manhattan Theater Club and Williamstown Theater Festival offering has been measured, sifted and distilled to create the most potent combination conceivable...Ms. Arianda and Mr. Rockwell, wild-card stars who here fulfill every promise of their earlier careers, provide plenty of injury-courting action as they bounce off the walls of Dane Laffrey's last-chance motel room set...But this production also makes it clear that 'Fool for Love' has a lot more going for it than its adrenaline quotient.
1983 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2015 | Broadway |
Manhattan Theatre Club Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Nina Arianda |
2016 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Sam Rockwell |
2016 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or off-Broadway) | Fool for Love |
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