Fool for Love (Criticism)

Criticism

A. Petrusso

In this essay, Petrusso compares and contrasts the play and the film version of Fool for Love.

Sam Shepard wrote the stage play for Fool for Love in 1983. Two years later, Shepard wrote the screenplay for the filmed version of Fool for Love and appeared in the movie as Eddie. Thus, Shepard was able to make his mark on two different versions of the same story. He had to meld each to the demands of their respective genres but also had a chance to expand on and explore different ideas within his core story. In this essay, the differences and similarities between the two versions will be discussed, as well as what these aspects say about the core story.

At the heart of both the film and stage versions of Fool for Love is the tumultuous relationship between half-siblings Eddie and May. This conflict drives the plot and is the substance of the story. Eddie and May have carried on a long-time affair. There are accusations on both sides of abandonment and disloyalty. Both versions feature the lovers’ rat-a-tat arguments, their “coming together” and “falling apart.” However, the dialogue in the play seems more intense and unyielding, mostly because of the production demands. In the stage version, Fool for Love is performed straight through, with no intermission. There is no break from the tension, no escaping the confrontation. It is an all-out assault on the audience. In the film version, events are broken up a little more. There are breaks and pauses that last much longer because the film allows for longer silences while visual images add to or reflect on the story at hand.

The variations on Fool for Love’s settings enhances these differences in dialogue and intensity level. The stage requires a very static setting. In the play, Shepard confines his actions to one place, May’s motel room. There is no place else to go; the setting is claustrophobic and tense. When the play opens, Eddie is already inside May’s space, the confrontation is already in swing. If Shepard had broken his play up into acts or scenes, there could have been more settings, but the play’s confining force would have been compromised. As it stands, Eddie is intruding in May’s place and invading her life. The Old Man, their father, is present off to one side, rocking in his chair. Shepard specifically says in his stage directions that the Old Man “exists only in the minds of May and Eddie.” The Old Man’s presence is very unnatural, spiritual, when compared to Eddie’s imposing, corporeal presence.

These ideas take on very different forms in the film version. The space is again confined but not merely to May’s motel room. The movie uses a whole motel complex, consisting of individual, free-standing motel cabins, a restaurant/bar, a play area for children, a trailer for the Old Man, and a large parking lot. This variety of settings opens up numerous possibilities for expanded scenes. When the movie opens, Eddie is on the road and May is working in the restaurant. Eddie seems much more predatory in the movie, in part because he circles May’s new life as an animal would circle its prey.

Eddie pulls into the motel complex, and May hides from him within the restaurant. Eddie goes on his way, perhaps thinking he has pulled into the wrong place but returns a short time later. By then, May has gone to her cabin and locked the front door. Then she hides in the bathroom and locks that door as well. To drive home Eddie’s invasion, Shepard has the character break down May’s front door. He literally invades her space in the movie.

Eddie has not only physically invaded May’s space, he has also invaded her sense of security, of mental stability. The audience can see that May has a job and her own life. These facts are stated but remain questionable in the play. Eddie and May make brief mention of her car, which tipped Eddie off that he was in the right place. There is no car in the play. May seems to have moved on, left her past behind — but for one factor. In the stage play, the Old Man is confined to a rocker on one side of the stage. In the movie, he has a whole trailer to himself with remnants of his past (mostly junk) surrounding it.

At the beginning of the movie, just before Eddie comes to the complex, May watches the Old Man through a window. He watches her back. This implies that May has lived with the Old Man’s presence much more than Eddie. She might have a new life, but it is lived in the shadow of the Old Man and her past. Eddie seems free of this constraint. There is nothing to indicate that the Old Man’s spirit haunts Eddie the way it does May. The only moment that comes close is when the Old Man invades Eddie’s space, checking out his truck while Eddie makes one of his initial confrontations with May. This detail adds a different spin on the triangle between the Old Man, Eddie, and May. The Old Man is much more mobile in the film. He walks around, sometimes hiding in corners, listening and watching events unfold.

Whether or not the Old Man is a figment of Eddie and May’s imagination in the film is debatable, but Shepard uses the demands of film to enhance one mythical part of the stage version. In the play, Shepard has Eddie, May, and the Old Man each deliver a monologue that tells part of their collective story. The Old Man talks about an incident when May was a child, crying in the car during a long trip. Eddie tells the first half of the story of how he and May met. May concludes the story. These tales may or may not be true in the stage play. It is hard to tell if they are part of the mythology these characters create about themselves or actual events. In the movie, these stories are told by the same characters, but Shepard uses the visual possibilities of the genre to add to their possible reality.

Shepard enhances these stories with a theme that runs through a large part of the film. Soon after Eddie appears, he goes outside to tend to his horses. May follows him. While they are in the parking lot, a couple and a little girl drive up. The threesome is dressed in 1950s clothing. They are the Old Man, May as a child, and May’s mother from decades past. The family checks into the motel. Later, the man leaves, then comes back after a short while. When the man comes back, young May is locked outside and plays on the swing set. She is retrieved by her father a short time later. Before he does so, there is a moment where the young May and the real May look at each other and hug. After the father takes the young May from the adult May, the elder woman lies down in the sand that surrounds the swing set. The Old Man comes over and tells his story about May as a child.

However, the Old Man’s story, like the ones Eddie and May tell later in the film, is almost a complete contradiction of the actual events. During each flashbacks, the actual events are shown. The stories match only in places, emphasizing the mythological elements in a way the stage play could never do. For example, in the Old Man’s story, he, May’s mother, and May are on a car trip, but May is not crying, nor is the mother asleep as he claims. Both are wide awake and silent. The Old Man does take young May into a field filled with cows, but it does not change the child’s demeanor to any noticeable degree.

Similarly, Eddie talks about the way the Old Man lived with them and the walk they took one day where he first met May. Many of the details are visually contradictory. For example, Eddie says that his father gave him the first sip of liquor after his father purchased a bottle. The visual story has the Old Man not offering his son anything. However, Eddie and his father do take a walk to a house with a red awning, and Eddie does see a young May. Of the three, May’s story matches the visuals the most, implying she is the most honest of the three characters, yet her story still contains several contradictory details. May is right about the fact that Eddie’s mother committed suicide, something with which Eddie agrees and the Old Man finds appalling. He cannot tolerate harsh reality as well as his children can.

The movie and the stage play diverge on “reality” on one, final point. Because the play’s action is

confined to one room, the audience does not see the Countess (Eddie’s other woman) and her Mercedes-Benz nor do they see Eddie’s truck and his horses. While there are sound effects to make these elements seem real, the mythical aspects of the play can casts doubts on their existence. In the movie, these elements are shown. Though mere visual representation does not validate reality, the case for the existence of these elements is stronger in the film than the play. Though the Countess does not speak a word, she does step out of a Mercedes-Benz toting a gun. Similarly, there are horses, making Eddie’s claims about a new life in Wyoming seem possible. At the end of the movie, after the Countess sets fire to Eddie’s truck and May packs her bags to leave, Eddie is shown riding one of his horses to catch up with the Countess. May walks down the road in the opposite direction. What is implied at the end of the stage play becomes reality in the movie.

The stage and film versions of Fool for Love retain many of the same story elements but use them quite differently. Each version of the story is distinct. The movie’s intensity level is not as sustained as the play’s because of the demands of the genre. The play cannot match the visual elements that the film boasts. Ultimately, the film explains what the play implies. The play’s intellectual demands on its audience are much greater. The audience must decide what is truth and what is myth as it watches the play unfold. The movie limits possible interpretations because many points left untold in the play are fully realized. Neither version is better than the other but both show the depth of Shepard’s ability as both a playwright and screenwriter.

Source: A. Petrusso, for Drama for Students, Gale, 2000.

What Do I Read Next?

• True West, a play by Shepard that was first produced in 1980. This play also concerns troubled siblings (two brothers) and their absentee father.
• The Magic Toyshop, a novel by Angela Carlin that was published in 1969. The story focuses on an incestuous relationship through the eyes of a teenage girl.
• Six Characters in Search of an Author, a play by Luigi Pirandello that was published in 1950. The drama employs a technique similar to the one used in Fool for Love in which an empty chair is placed outside the frame.
• Forbidden Partners: The Incest Taboo in Modern Culture, a nonfiction book by James S. B. Twitchell published in 1987. In this book, Twitchell explores the use of incest in art and literature in the contemporary culture of the United States.
• Buried Child, a play by Shepard first produced in 1978. In the play, a family secret of incest and infanticide is accidentally discovered years after the fact.