Review: A convincing cast in 'Fool for Love'

In an interview published last year, Sam Shepard said that Robert Altman's 1985 movie version of his play, "Fool for Love," was largely a mistake.

"On film, it comes across as kind of a quaint little Western tale of two people lost in a motel room," said Shepard. "In the theater it was right in front of your face, it was so intense it was kind of scary."

Stone Soup Theatre restores that scary immediacy with its production of Shepard's one-act, intermission-less tale of two people who can't stand to be together. Or apart.

No matter where you sit in this intimate Wallingford space, the actors are inches from you, and you can't escape the feeling that they're likely to pounce at any moment.

As the philandering Eddie, Anders Bolang is especially well cast. He never seems to be commenting on the character or calling attention to his redneck tendencies. He simply IS this guy: charismatic one moment, piggish the next.

As May, the woman he can't live without (or with), Annie Lareau quickly establishes the connection between these twin emotional disasters. She knows Eddie's tricks and weaknesses, and she's prepared to match (and thwart) him all the way.

Her revenge includes arranging a date with Martin (Daniel Arreola), an innocent who gets dragged into their follies and keeps trying to escape. Filling out the cast is a whiskey-swilling old man (John Clark), who pops up as an audience member, then as a commentator.

Under the assured direction of Charlotte Tiencken, all four actors are given room to find something they can claim as their own. Bolang emphasizes Eddie's carnal nature, Lareau suggests May's flexibility, Clark underlines his character's understandable cynicism, while Arreola turns Martin into an appealing innocent.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com