A BRILLIANTLY BRACING LOOK AT LOVE’S OTHER SIDE
Romantic love is rarely easy. Even when a relationship progresses from first attraction to full commitment to picture-perfect nuptials, there are no guarantees. Since its 1983 debut in San Francisco, Sam Shepard’s hour-long one-act Fool for Love, written after a difficult divorce, has become a template for exploring love’s darker side—disappointment, distrust, and the thin line between love and hate. Despite this toxicity, and even with love tragically tainted by disappointment and distrust, an undeniable and remitting pull persists, a base and throbbing craving for that other person.
Nick Gehlfuss and Caroline Neff
In Steppenwolf’s production of this modern-day classic which places doomed love under the microscope, these are the kind of feelings you sense in May (Carolyn Neff)—although the roots of her noxious relationship with Eddie (Nick Gehlfuss) are yet unknown. Rare but real, some attractions are immediate, lifelong and all consuming. It’s the kind May and Eddie fell into blindly through fateful happenstance. By the time they realized the gravity of what they were doing in high school 15 years before, it was too late. Reality can’t change the demands of the heart.
Caroline Neff and Nick Gehlfuss
When introduced to May, you initially sense anger and confusion. She’s living in a rundown bare bones motel “on the edge of the Mojave desert” and Eddie has come to see her. Their conversation is hard; at least hers is. She’s all but seething and seems torn whether to believe in anything he says. You sense she doesn’t know if she wants him to stay or leave. While he’s there, she berates him. When he begins to leave, she clings to him. No matter how often he reassures her with, “May, I’m not going anywhere,” her wavering is sodden with pathos. Neff’s portrayal of May captures an inner rage that’s on perpetual high boil throughout, creating an almost hypnotic intensity as the drama develops.
Cliff Chamberlain and Nick Gehlfuss
Their exchanges begin to unearth clues as to how they arrived at this pernicious present. Eddie has a history of leaving and eventually coming back. When he tries to mollify May by repeatedly reminding her that he came 2,480 miles not only to see her but to take her back to Utah with him, she’s decidedly nonplussed. She knows that doesn’t mean he won’t leave her again. A tall gangly cowboy whose body iss starting to reveal the tolls of a rugged life, Eddie’s like a tumbleweed—completely at the mercy of the winds of chance and providence.
Cliff Chamberlain and Caroline Neff with Nick Gehlfuss
Infidelity—another word for betrayal—further complicates their dynamic. As much as Eddie, at first, tries to deny it, it’s too entrenched for him to run away from its truth. His relationship with “the Countess” haunts him, and her presence in the motel room adds a layer of tension, even as she never appears onstage or speaks any lines. We definitely get that this other woman is piqued at him for being there. An old man (Tim Hopper) sitting in a wooden chair off to the right inserts himself into the dialog or makes comments about what they’re saying. He seems to know a great deal about their lives—perhaps too much—adding an ominous air to the already fraught situation.
Cliff Chamberlain, Nick Gehlfuss and Tim Ho
pper and Caroline Neff
Then there’s Martin (Cliff Chamberlain), whose appearance also seems portentous. A friend of May’s, he bursts in having seen the lights repeatedly go on and off in the motel room. Thinking May’s in danger, he accosts Eddie and apologizes when they try to explain what was happening. May tries, unconvincingly, to pass Martin off as her boyfriend. With so much heavy dramatic weight in the play, Martin, in Chamberlain’s perfect portrayal, becomes the note of lightness and humor that defuses the tension and provides the balance to offset the play’s heft. The purity of his obliging gullibility is a welcome contrast to the scandalous truths that begin to surface surrounding May and Eddie’s relationship. May tells him she and Eddie are cousins; causing Eddie to snort, with only mild disdain, “Do we look like cousins?” The facts are much more damning. But the shock and surprise of the revelation are overshadowed by the deep sympathy you feel for both of them.
Nick Gehlfuss and Tim Hopper
Shepard’s play often explores lives on society’s fringes. Here, director Jeremy Herrin’s perceptive guidance pairs absolute love with inescapable guilt, giving the audience a raw understanding of living with both. To live a life as an invisible pariah. Enhancing the feeling of remote apartness, Todd Rosenthal’s scrupulously evocative set captures the air of isolation you can experience in the open West. Grounding the characters while amplifying their emotional distance, it also radiates a hushed unassuming beauty.
Cliff Chamberlain, Nick Gehlfuss and Caroline Neff and Tim Hopper
A wonderfully accomplished cast, Neff, Gehlfuss, Hopper and Chamberlain coat their characters in a potent realism; one that builds and nurtures both understanding and compassion—attributes that define superlative theater.
Cliff Chamberlain and Caroline Neff with Nick Gehlfussphotos by Michael Brosilow
Nick Gehlfuss and Tim Hopper
Fool for Love
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
approximately 65 minutes, no intermission
ends on March 16, 2025 extended to March 23, 2025
Tues-Fri at 7:30; Sat at 3 & 7:30; Sun at 3; Wed at 2 (March 5)
for tickets ($20-$128), call 312.335.1650 or visit Steppenwolf
for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago
