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.
Ms. Arianda has returned to Broadway in a revival of Sam Shepard's 'Fool for Love' that originated at Massachusetts' Williamstown Theatre Festival. Directed by Daniel Aukin, it is fully worthy of her gifts, and the results are -- almost literally -- explosive. This show will make you sweat...Dane Laffrey, the set designer, has situated the action of the play in a shallow, low-ceilinged wooden box that forces Ms. Arianda and Mr. Rockwell to spend much of their time standing in profile to the audience. They look like a lanky pair of parentheses and act like two rabid dogs in heat. It's no knock on Mr. Rockwell, who delivers his big monologue with unemphatic but absorbing force, to point out that whenever Ms. Arianda is onstage, she's the one you look at and listen to. I wish she'd worked harder on her accent, but that doesn't matter too much: Every other part of her performance is scaldingly, unimpeachably real.
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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