16th Street Actors Studio Presents: Fool For Love by Sam Shepard

21 September – 2 October at 16th Street Actors Studio Theatre B: 715 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield, VIC, Australia.

Through searing truth and dark humour, Fool for Love depicts the story of two people who just can’t live without each other whether they like it or not. May is hiding out at an old motel in the Mojave Desert. Eddie, an old flame and childhood friend, finds her there and threatens to drag her back into the life from which she had fled. Reality and dream; truth and lies; past and present mingle in an explosive, emotional experience.

Shepard’s plays ruthlessly skewer the fundamental underpinning of American identity, specifically family and masculinity. The story of May and Eddie is inspired by Shepard’s own fraught and dangerous affair with actress Jessica Lange; steeped as it was in a deep, impossible passion, and Shepard’s struggle with the legacy of his Air Force pilot ‘hero’ father. Fool For Love explores intergenerational trauma and the purpose of women in a society ruled by men and remains as relevant today as it was the first time it was performed in 1983 by Ed Harris and Kathy Baker at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Part of a quintet of plays, Fool For Love was a finalist in the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was also adapted into Robert Altman’s 1985 film of the same name, starring Shephard himself and Kim Basinger. A powerful, real-time commentary on how the truth is difficult and painful but can also set us free.

Learn more about APATA member Emma Louise Pursey HERE