The Old Man - Fool For Love
I like to class myself as a Character Actor’ – I search for roles that allow me to ‘become’ someone else, not just portray a different person. The role of The Old Man in Sam Shepard’s ‘Fool For Love’ is, I’m overjoyed to report, just that kind of role.
For those not familiar with this wonderfully funny and touching love story, the character may or may not be actually real, present, or even alive. He comments on his own perception of what he sees, while being either ignored by the other actors…or perhaps invisible to them. His world view comes from that of a nameless by-stander, sitting in a comfortable old rocking chair, flavoured by Whiskey – all states of being that I am not familiar with.
Our Director definitely has given us a few sign-posts to the directions that she wants to the cast to take, but mostly it is the interaction between the four of us on-stage (Even The Old Man, who suffers from the lonely existence noted above) that will define the overall road map. The best place to start any journey are the facts; the where’s, when’s, and who’s that we can parse from the script highlighted by our Director’s ideas of overall look. So, let’s go there……
The beginning of the 1980’s – The ‘Me’ decade of excess, and borderline illegal activities that were taken as normal, in order to get the individual as successful as possible – in a bare, ragged Motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert. A place that has been built, and is run for, those in a transitory state of some kind: Travellers, Runaways, those in hiding.
May, in her early thirties, has obviously been there for a while – she has a suitcase of clothes, and this includes at least one dress up outfit – but it is no way permanent. Eddie has obviously arrived there to help her – at least in his mind. Did she call? Did he track her down? It’s never clear. His feelings for her aren’t exactly reciprocated….at least for most of the time. Poor Martin: He’s there simply to take a girl on a date, but what kind on manic push and pull is going on here, between these two? Do they love each other, or hate each other, somewhere in between? Is it the end of a relationship, or the beginning of a deeper phase of one that most of us can only dream…or nightmare, about? Then there’s The Old Man. Is he there and ignored, or only there ‘In Spirit’ – and spirits!
The themes are of something tired, worn and worn out, but does that refer to Eddie and May’s relationship? Memory and perception are also explored, but are these just tired, worn reminiscences, regrets, and dreams of other times? With one month to go before our Production Week starts, these questions haven’t been answered, and perhaps, they won’t be by us. I’m overjoyed, though, to be sharing the stage with three other ‘Character Actors’, all wrestling with these questions as their characters – just as we do in real life.
No Pictures are available of this production, yet. Hopefully, I can add one closer to Tech. week.
