Fool For Love Previews

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 12:58am

Anyone go?

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 1:02am

They start tomorrow (well, tonight). 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 10:34am

Oh, my bad! Totally was thinking the 15th was yesterday, ha. 

[Testing1232]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 8:34pm

Wife just left theatre, so I don't have any details, other than a text---- "Wow, that was so good ! " 

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 9:29pm

I was there tonight. It's a short play, clocking in about 75 minutes, and nothing really interesting happens until 35/40 minutes in, so it's a little difficult to discuss the play without going into a lot of spoilers.

 

The only set is a dingy (yet spacious?) motel room near the Mojave Desert. May (Nina Arianda) has been holed up here for a while and Eddie (Sam Rockwell) has finally caught up with her after traveling 2,480 miles to track her down. An old man sits frozen in a chair to the side of the set, listening, but not directly watching the proceedings.

 

There's a lot of back and forth between the two leads: I want you back/You'll never have me again! Now Leave!/Fine, I'm out of here/No, wait/ I knew you still wanted me/What will be different this time/I love you and I mean it/And you didn't mean it the last five times you told me? How could you sleep with her/She meant nothing to me. It's you I love

 

I was really hoping that there would be more to the play than this, because other than Arianda looking smoking hot (she strips down to her bra and underwear) there's not much going here. To go further require some SPOILERS, so be warned...

******************************************************************************

 

A date arrives to take May out to the movies. Eddie is wildly jealous and wants to sabotage her evening. Things get physical, but it's clear that Eddie won't be able to overpower the date and the two of them would rather play a few rounds of "Get the Guest" with anyway. Eddie and May (a Wild Party reference?) are no George and Martha, but they still have a little fun torturing poor Martin with a tale. Things get a little surreal and it turns into one of these were the telling the truth, a half truth or just a bunch of flat out lies to get each other off type scenarios.

 

END SPOILERS****************************************************************************************

 

The set isn't much to look at and the direction is perfunctory. I think this would have played better at The New Group or MCC. It would have fit nicely into the Lortel; the characters would have felt more trapped and suffocated in that motel on a smaller stage and the intimacy with the audience would have bolstered any immediacy the piece had. There were a few cool lighting effects.

 

My main excitement was seeing Arianda after adoring her in both Born Yesterday and Venus in Fur, not to mention her latest glorious reunion with Hugh Dancy in lamentably canceled Hannibal. She dives into the part with the vim and vigor she gave to her previous performances, there's a lot less meat to chew on here. The play feels like a minor work in Shepard's catalog- certainly nothing like the thrill I got from the last A Lie of the Mind revival with Marin Ireland and Laurie Metcalf. Now that was riveting stuff. Still, if you're a fan of Arianda I think it's worth checking out.

[Testing1232]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 9:37pm

Pretty much what my wife said, but think she liked a bit more--- said nothing much goes on in the beginning , but picked up later on, and said the acting was excellent --- she was in orch N -- ( TDF) , and said theatre looked to be really crowded 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 10:55pm

I like the play (saw Will Patton and an unknown named Bruce Willis in it, back in the day), but frankly I'm going for Rockwell. Have never seen him deliver a less than provocative performance on film. He turned "The Way, Way Back" (a title I misguote; sorry if I've done so again) into a far better, more complicated movie, outshining everyone, even the peerless Colette. He should be a star, in my biased opinion.  A gifted actor, one of the best of his generation.  I will hang on any opinion posted on his performance.  He is reason enough for this to happen.

  

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/15/15 at 11:11pm

I liked Rockwell in Way, Way Back too, but didn't find his work in A Behanding in Spokane to be that thrilling, though that could have been the part/play. 

 

I thought he did fine work here and developed more chemistry with Arianda as the night went on. 

 

 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 12:49am

Excuse my ignorance, but is it always a girl/boy due? Auggie mentioned two guys, no? 

[A Director]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 3:12am

There are four characters in the play: May, Eddie, Martin, Old Man.  I doubt if the names May and Eddie are a nod to The Wild Party.  There is a lot going on in the play. I think it's major Shepard.  If musicals are your thing, perhaps Shepard is not for you.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 5:04am

Written in the 70s and definitely one of his well known plays, likely one of the first you read if studying Shepard. His plays are not fare for the average theater goer.  (This is not a comment on anyone's opinion, he's just an acquired taste.

 

I really hope to catch this, as I've never seen a Shepard play produced and was the first avant garde (for lack of a better word- I used to call him absurdist, but not sure if he really qualified, esp by today's standards.) writer I "got".

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 6:41am

Unfortunately, I wasn't alive to catch Shepard's classics the first go-round, but I've been trying to see as many as I can in revival, as well as his new stuff like Heartless at Signature with Lois Smith. Like I said, I LOVED A Lie of the Mind and still use it as a barometer when I see other plays. I can't compare it to the original, but that revival made it feel like a magnum opus, so interesting to hear that this is considered the gold standard. 

 

And Eddie and May could have been a reference from The Wild Party poem, or maybe not, but it was the first thing I thought of when I heard the pair of names and saw the rocky, co-dependent relationship. Maybe Shepard is a fan of the poem. 

 

I hope you get to see this, dramamama and see if it lives up to your expectations!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 7:03am

I'm not sure about it being the gold standard.  Maybe because it's a little more accessible then his other work?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 7:16am

I guess it was a little more accessible than some of the others, but it still had surrealistic elements, and once those started kicking in I became more involved with the characters and their plight. 

 

Now, Heartless was anything but accessible, and yet Smith's mystical performance held it together and I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

 

 

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 7:25am

A trial by error --- the error being this clunker.

 

If you want to be bored out of your gourd, hie yourself over to this post haste.

 

The most interesting thing in it was Sam Rockwell throwing a lasso.

 

As a result of the obscure title thread, after about ten minutes of this dud, I wished I were back watching UTBU, Never Live Over a Pretzel Factory, or Nathan Weinstein, Mystic, Connecticut: plays that actually offered a good time!

 

The actors were good.

 

 

 

[A Director]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 12:58pm

Dramamama, Fool For Love was written in 1983.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 1:03pm

I love the way After Eight "reviews" everything as if it were a new play. This is not a new play. If you didn't like the play, that's not the production's fault.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 9/19/15 at 10:09am

Saw the show last night, and really enjoyed it overall. Some have mentioned that it started off boring but picked up at the end. It's funny because I kind of felt the opposite. I was completely engaged, until the play took a turn for the weird in the last 5-10 minutes, at which point they started to lose me a bit.

 

I guess it's because I have no problem with plays in which not much happens. I just really enjoyed seeing the push-and-pull between these 2 characters, and the addition of the other man was really interesting as well. It definitely helped that the performances were so strong. I thought Sam Rockwell played the role excellently, though he was admittedly a bit out-shined by the incredible Nina Arianda, who is giving a really fascinating, powerful performance. The other 2 actors also seemed to be exactly what their respective characters needed. I agree that it would have played better in a smaller space, but the audience seemed to be enjoying it. 

 

I've been excited to see this ever since I heard Rockwell and Arianda were attached, and in that respect, it definitely didn't disappoint. I thought the play itself was fine, and well-suited to showing off the talents of its actors, which was the real highlight of the evening.

 

For those wondering:

 

The box-office opens at noon all this week. I showed up at around 12:15, and they still had rush and 30-under-30. I asked which would give me better seats. He said that 30-under-30 would be front Mezz, while Rush would be rear Orchestra. I went with Front Mezz for the extra $3. Great seat, great view. 

 

Arianda and Rockwell took a while to come out of the stage door (a little less than an hour), but once they did they were happy to sign, chat, and pose for pictures. I would also recommend trying to catch Gordon Joseph Weiss, who plays the Old Man. He is incredibly kind and seemed to love talking to the people at the stage-door and telling anecdotes from the show. 

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 9/19/15 at 10:47am

Saw it last night. From the 4th row, the performances are terrific. I imagine they're exquisite all over, as you can hear every juicy syllable loud and clear.

The set is simple, but very effective. They've somehow mic'ed all of the doors and walls so that every crash and thud and slam echoes. It's powerful and alarming.

However, I don't think much of the play. Mostly, I found it tedious. There were moments it soared, but they were few and far between. I'm not the biggest Shepard fan, so I expected that going in. But nonetheless, it was a satisfying evening of theatre. 

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/20/15 at 3:25pm

As good a production of this play as I ever hope to see. Rockwell and Arianda command the stage from the first word. 

[UptownScribe]

Posted: 9/20/15 at 9:31pm

Saw it tonight from the front of the balcony. Either Rockwell and Arianda don't have chemistry or it didn't radiate upstairs. I believe it's the former. In the first moments May wraps her arms around Eddie's thigh in an I-can't-quit-you surrender. But as soon as they look at each other and then speak our expectations are disappointed. This cast doesn't gel. The director did a fine job at LCT a few years ago with 4000 Miles, and Arianda is an excellent actor. The audience should be leaning forward in their seats in anticipation - it''s wrong but this couple is meant for each other. This production is missing that heat. And heat is written in the spaces between words in Shepard's minimalist mastery.

[PianoMann]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 10:19am

I'm sorry to say I was quite disappointed in Fool For Love.  I agree with Whizzer that very little interesting happens in the first half of the play, with Rockwell and Arianda meandering around the stage repeating variations on the same conversation.  The introduction of additional player(s) later on helps marginally.

The only redeeming moments are Rockwell's and Arianda's monologues in the final 15 or 20 minutes.  Shepard finally gives these characters some interesting material to work with, and they both deliver beautifully. I'm sad that this is my first exposure to Arianda (I unfortunately missed her performances in both Born Yesterday and Venus in Fur) because the material is limiting. 

I also have to give special mention to Gordon Joseph Weiss, who is captivating in a rather thankless role.  His character's function in the piece and how he interacts with the other characters is muddy and inconsistent, but watching his reactions at key moments was chilling and delivered a lot of the emotional heft.

I used the MTC 30 for 30 offer to see this and was in Orchestra BB, technically the second row but I don't think they're selling the first row of seats because they are far too close to the stage.  BB is a bit uncomfortable, too, but I think being so close added to some of the intimacy that was sorely missing.  It was definitely worth seeing for what I paid for my ticket, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone who would have to pay full price.  I'd say this is my least favorite MTC production that I've seen; I enjoyed Snow Geese immensely more, for example.  

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 10:58am

Ouch! Snow Geese was unbearable.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 11:01am

I wonder if a lot of Shepard's work hasn't been somewhat diminished with time.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/21/15 at 11:12am

Snow Geese! Now that was a clunker. I'm with TotallyEffed on that one- just unbearable. Fool For Love was watchable, it just took forever to get going and then was over without much payoff.