You Don’t Want to Be a Fool for Love

Friends, advertising really does work. After seeing an ad that was full of gushing reviews for Fool for Love, I quickly bought my ticket. It was, much to my disappointment, a bit overrated.

Note: Spoilers ahead! If you are not familiar with this revival of Fool for Love (written in 1983) and don’t want the plot ruined, don’t read the next paragraph and skip to the very end.

Eddie and May have had an on-again, off-again relationship for fifteen years. They met in high school and are now in their 30s. Eddie, a wannabe tough cowboy, has driven over 2000 miles to find May and get her back. May has been living in a somewhat dingy motel room while working as a cook somewhere. They prowl around each other, mostly shouting at each other and physically slamming themselves or furniture around. There is a third character on stage the entire time—the Old Man. He is in both of their heads, making comments and bringing up childhood memories of each Eddie and May. Eventually, May reveals she has a date coming to pick her up, and when he arrives, this man becomes privy to Eddie and May’s history, which they each hypnotically tell. Big plot twist: Eddie and May are half-siblings! However, they only discovered that fact after they had already met in high school and fell in love. This reveal in high school pushed Eddie’s mother to shoot herself. The Old Man, it turns out, is their father.

Sam Rockwell as Eddie has swagger. He exudes the cowboy masculinity. He is a force to be reckoned with. Nina Arianda, on the other hand, is overhyped. She spends the first several minutes of her spoken dialogue shouting. Instead of showing us a woman who is physically unable to leave Eddie, who can’t emotionally leave him either, she gives us a crazy woman. Her strongest moment is when she is vulnerably reciting her shared history with Eddie. She quietly explains what happened to her mother and Eddie’s mother, and the disappearance of the Old Man with sadness and resolve.

At a very short eighty-ish minutes long, the play is an interesting—and slightly depressing—comment about love and the ties that bind. Love hurts. Love makes you foolish. You can’t choose who you love, or who your family is. You’ll always be pulled back to them even if you shouldn’t be. As Eddie and may have discovered, the realities of love are not as bright and starry as the idea of love.