In ‘Fool for Love’, Sam Shepard sets the tone straight away. The stage lights come on to reveal a man and woman deep in a stalemate in a downbeat motel room in the middle of nowhere. The woman, May, has her head between her knees over one side of the double bed. The guy, Eddie, is sitting in a chair, fidgeting with his glove and bucking strap. They’re not saying anything. An older man, perched on a platform off stage left, talks to us about this troubled couple. Shepard doesn’t let go of the tension as he proceeds to unravel the couple’s story and show how they will forever remain at an impasse.

Shepard’s play, written in San Francisco in 1983, still has elemental, primal force. His work bears similarities with another great American dramatist, Tennessee Williams. There are some of the same characters that inhabit ‘Streetcar’; the super macho, aggressive guy, the fragile, sensual woman, the suitor caught in the middle…

Imara Savage directs a powerful revival on which she stamps her own imprint.
Shepard’s Old Man becomes something of a blues guitarist and singer in Terry Serio’s hands. Savage uses scattergun slides of May and Eddie as children to great effect in the play’s penultimate scene.

The cast deliver. Justin Stewart Cotta is well cast as the menacing Eddie, as is Alan Flower as the set upon Martin. Terry Serio is great as the Old Man, and composed his own impressive score for the production. Emma Jackson was exceptional, she was just so pumped up and on top of her role from the start.

Michael Hankin’s finely detailed set of the cramped, claustrophobic motel room and Verity Hampson’s stark lighting design were integral to the play’s impact.

A Savage production, in association with B Sharp, of Shepard’s savage dissection of a relationship fated from the start, ‘Fool for Love’ plays the downstairs theatre at Belvoir until Sunday 24th October, 2010.