Some plays have so much appeal for actors that they continue to be produced by small scrappy companies, no matter how many times audiences may have seen them.
David Mamet and Sam Shepard are especially prone to this kind of black-box exposure, at least in Chicago. One can understand why performers and directors are drawn to the high-octane material, but the current Reverie production of “Fool for Love” also underscores how difficult it can be to make familiar material fresh and relevant.
Set in a dingy hotel room at the edge of the Mojave Desert, Shepard’s play is notable mostly because it was the first of his major works to focus almost exclusively on sexual passion. The self-contained twilight world of half-siblings and lovers Eddie and May requires the actors to literally bounce off the walls in their feral and funny-sad game of attraction and repulsion.
For the piece to fully engage us, both actors have to be perfectly matched, physically and vocally.
Chris Pomeroy’s staging has the right physical energy, but the chemistry between Michael Bassett’s laconically arrogant Eddie and Eva Wilhelm’s May never coalesces. Wilhelm too often chooses to play May, who is supposed to be on the edge of hysteria, as an acerbic, exasperated girlfriend/wife of the sitcom variety.
The supporting performances from Scott Hamilton Westerman as Martin, May’s hapless would-be boyfriend, and Leonard Kraft as the Old Man who fathered the star-crossed lovers, are nearly note-perfect, but they can’t make up for the lassitude and lack of urgency in the central love story.
This isn’t a terrible production by any means — but it doesn’t make the case for the play’s enduring appeal as well as it should.
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“Fool for Love”
When: Through July 13
Where: Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave.
Phone: 773-935-6860
