"Fool For Love" at Planet Earth Multi-Cultural Theatre
(out of 
)Mark S.P. Turvin
(home office) (602) 912-0117
I can be reached for comment via e-mail at: mspt@goldfishpublishers.com
(out of )When it first premiered in 1983,
Sam Shepard's "Fool For Love" went over much of the
same ground that he enjoyed exploring
so much...passion, insatiable love, fate, incest and the West.
The attraction of this piece for actors and directors is the power
of
its spare, poetically simplistic dialogue and the intensity of
the situation, which plays out, without intermission, over an
hour and twenty minutes in a rundown motel room somewhere west
of the
Mississippi. Here, a cowboy and a small-town girl struggle against
their condemned love and bounce off the walls, tearing apart each
other and those around them with what they can't have and can't
resist.
It's not that Shepard hadn't done
all of the same things with
his earlier plays, such as the much adored "Buried Child",
but his blending of the in-your-face realism of the two main characters
with the subtextual surrealism represented by the omnipresent
character of the Old Man succinctly brought together all of his
experimental works with his underlying penchant for simply telling
a good story.
In the hands of Peter James Cirino,
Artistic Director of
Planet Earth Theatre, this show would seem to be a perfect
vehicle. Overall, the show is reasonably well-presented and
reasonably well-performed, though the usual flair for the
theatrical and experimental usually associated with this group
seems to be sadly missing. While nothing stands out as being
overtly wrong, save for one performance, there is also nothing
that really stands out overall. This is Shepard given a simple,
solid presentation that depends more on the script than the
production, and for some inexplicable reason, that is a
disappointment.
Mr. Cirino's blocking and direction
seems to be by-the-book.
At no point does the production grab the audience and shake it
by
the proverbial collar. While, really, there's nothing wrong with
that, persay, it's still disconcerting when considered against
the previous, impressive body of work presented by this group.
The men in the piece, notably Eric
Woods, give solid
performances. Mr. Wood's portrayal of Eddie, the boozy cowboy
fleeing a love gone wrong and returning to a love that should
never have been, was commendable. His slow descent into
drunkenness and his abrupt moments of lucidity were always true.
As the ever-present Old Man, Tom Collins gave a believable
performance. As Martin, an innocent bystander who becomes involved
with the torrid situation, Anthony Andrews played the humor of
the role in an interesting and appreciable way.
The biggest let-down of the evening,
besides the unremarkable
presentation, was the overly telegraphed performance of Mollie
Kellogg Cirino as the poor, sweet, doomed May. The character is
meant to be at once powerful and overpowered, but Ms. Cirino's
presentation was too over-the-top to ever give her anything more
than an air of insanity. From quaking, clutching start to wild,
frenetic end, Ms. Cirino seems too crazy too early to allow for
any true character movement.
David Gonzales set and lighting were
perfect for the
presentation, though there were two specific moments during
crucial monologues near the end where the lighting was too
overpowering and drew too much attention to itself.
It's rare when a theatre can give
a simple, solid and
straightforward production of an American classic like this, and
still somehow miss something in the process, but despite Planet
Earth's simple, solid and straightforward production of "Fool
For
Love," they've inexplicably missed the mark. Whether the
productions adherence to the script has betrayed flaws within,
or
the chemistry wasn't there, unfortunately, it seems a simple case
where the parts just don't equal the whole.
Production Details:
"Fool For Love" by Sam Shepard
Planet Earth Theatre, Phoenix
241-1828
May 24th-June 15th, 1996
$9 General-$7 Students and Seniors