Fool for Love by Sam Shepard
"Fool for Love" is a play by Sam Shepard set in a desolate motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert, exploring the complex dynamics of a tumultuous love-hate relationship between Eddie and May. After a long absence, Eddie returns, desperate to reclaim May, his high school lover, resulting in a push-and-pull dynamic where she oscillates between wanting him to leave and pleading for him to stay. Eddie, depicted as a broken rodeo cowboy, grapples with his lost glory and identity, while May struggles to assert her independence, attempting to create her own life beyond their toxic bond. The play delves into themes of family history and the burden of relationships, as both characters confront their shared past and the influence of their father, referred to as The Old Man, who reflects on his connections with their mothers.
Through sharp dialogue, Shepard presents a portrait of two individuals entwined in an almost incestuous connection, showcasing their attempts to define their identities amidst the chaos of their intertwined lives. The narrative captures the fragility of dreams, as demonstrated by Eddie's aspirations of a life in Wyoming contrasted with their stark realities. Overall, "Fool for Love" portrays a raw exploration of love, identity, and the inescapable ties to family, making it a poignant commentary on the struggles of personal freedom within complex relationships.
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Subject Terms
Fool for Love by Sam Shepard
First produced: 1983, at the Magic Theater, San Francisco
First published: 1983
The Work
Set in a desolate motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert, Fool for Love displays an alternately tender and violent love-hate relationship. Unlike the struggle between two brothers in the playwright’s True West (1980), the conflict in Fool for Love is between a woman and a man. After a long absence, Eddie has traveled 2,480 miles to reclaim May, his lover since high school. At different times during their abrupt reunion she alternately orders him to leave and begs him to stay.
Eddie boasts spurs, bucking strap, and all the other trappings of a rodeo cowboy, but his quest for glory in that arena has left him broken down and prematurely old. As if trying to hold on to his heroic Western identity, he practices roping the motel furniture. Eddie’s affair with a society woman who drives a huge, black Mercedes-Benz has subverted his role as rugged cowboy. Angered by his desertion, the woman burns his pickup truck and sets his horses loose. A decrepit man trying to salvage his dream, Eddie talks of moving to Wyoming, where he can grow vegetables. Even in this fantasy, however, his residence will be a trailer, suggesting the ephemeral fragility of his dream.
May has long been confined to a trailer and to the claustrophobic motel room (against whose walls she frequently beats her head). In Shepard’s first sustained development of a female character, she attempts to escape these symbolic traps and shape an identity separate from Eddie by taking a job as a cook and by dating Martin, a pleasant although somewhat bland orphan. To disparage her efforts, Eddie claims that she cannot even flip an egg and labels Martin a twerp. Eddie further asserts that he and May will “always be connected.”
As in True West, these two characters are separate individuals and warring components of a single confused identity. May claims that she can smell Eddie’s thoughts before he thinks them, and they are half-sister and half-brother. They are drawn relentlessly into an incestuous love. Their father, identified as The Old Man, sits onstage during the entire play and comments occasionally on the action. He describes his relationships with two different women (the mothers of May and Eddie) as the same love that somehow got split in two. The play’s dialogue presents different versions of family history, and these debates about the past exemplify the difficulty of escaping the burden of family and forging an individual identity—a theme developed more fully in A Lie of the Mind (1985).
Bibliography
Auerback, Doris. Sam Shepard, Arthur Kopit, and the Off Broadway Theater, 1982.
Bank, Rosemarie. “Self as Other: Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind.” In Feminist Rereadings of Modern American Drama, edited by June Schlueter. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989.
Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Vol. 3, Beyond Broadway, 1985.
Hart, Lynda. Sam Shepard’s Metaphorical Stages. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987. In the section of her book about Shepard’s brand of realism, “Realism Revisited,” Hart devotes several pages of discussion to the staging of Fool for Love.
Londre, Felicia Hardison. “A Motel of the Mind: Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind.” In Rereading Shepard, edited by Leonard Wilcox. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. An interesting discussion of motels as metaphors for states of mind and heart in Shepard’s plays.
Marlowe, Joan, and Betty Blake, eds. New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews 44, no. 19 (1983): 212-216. Six reviews from New York papers. Gives a wide range of interpretive opinions about the original Shepard-directed production.
Marranca, Bonnie, ed. American Dreams: The Imagination of Sam Shepard, 1981.
Mottram, Ron. Inner Landscapes: The Theater of Sam Shepard. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1984.
Oumano, Ellen. Sam Shepard: The Life and Work of an American Dreamer, 1986.
Tucker, Martin. Sam Shepard. Literature and Life: American Writers. New York: Continuum Press, 1992. Contains an interesting discussion of Fool for Love that speculates about possible autobiographical links to the romantic and family dynamics explored in the play.
Wetzsetson, Ross. Introduction to Fool for Love and Other Plays by Sam Shepard. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. An insightful and readable description of Shepard’s dramatic sensibility, with special attention to Fool for Love.
Wilcox, Leonard, ed. Rereading Shepard: Contemporary Critical Essays. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.