Sam ShepardSam Shepard_Fool for Love_Fool for Love

1

Sam Shepard, Fool for Love Key Facts GENRE · One Act Play TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Early 1980s, London DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · 1983 TONE · Surreal; larger than life SETTINGS (TIME) · Somewhere on the edge of the Mojave Desert, early 1980s SETTING (PLACE) · May's motel room PROTAGONISTS · May and Eddie MAJOR CONFLICT · Eddie returns to May, his on-again, off-again lover, whom

he left alone in a trailer. May will not take Eddie back because she suspect she is having an affair with a woman they call the Countess; Eddie is mad at May for not appreciating how far he came to see her and for not taking him back into her affection; Eddie becomes jealous of her date with a new man named Martin RISING ACTION · Eddie tells Martin that he and May are not cousins; Eddie tells Martin that he and May fooled around in high school. Eddie tells Martin a story about himself and the Old Man revealing that the Old Man is his father CLIMAX · Eddie reveals that he and May found out that they are siblings after they became teenage lovers and that the Old Man is their father FALLING ACTION · In Act Four May tells her version of Eddie's story in which she reveals her mother's pain in knowing the Old Man had two women; she reveals that Eddie's mother killed herself. The Old Man is surprised and devastated. THEMES · A cycle of abandonment and returning; Co-dependence; Love as desire and repulsion MOTIFS · Power struggle; Masculinity; Memory and point of view SYMBOLS · Barbara Mandrell; Mercedes Benz; Fire FORESHADOWING · May tells Eddie early on in the play that she will get him when he least expects it and soon after saying this she kisses him and then knees him in the groin. Eddie tells May that they are connected and that their connection was decided a long time ago. This foreshadows the knowledge of their blood relation being revealed later in the play. Context Sam Shepard was born in Fort Sheridan, Illinois on November 5, 1943. His father served in the Air Force as a fighter pilot in World War II and then retired to a farm in Duarte, California where Shepard was raised. As a youth, Shepard was often troubled by his heavy-drinking father. Sam Shepard studied agriculture for a year at San Antonio Junior College and then left to join a touring company of actors. In 1963 he moved to New York City where he served tables at the Village Gate, in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, where legendary jazz performers played. Within a year, Shepard had several of his plays produced in Off-Off Broadway theaters. Fatefully, Shepard began his work in the theater in New York City during the birth of the Off-Off Broadway movement. His work was made at experimental avant-garde venues such as Caffe Cino, the Open Theatre, the American Place Theatre and La Mama. Young talent like Shepard dared to shock and surprise audiences with avant-garde, daring, and groundbreaking work on next to nothing budgets. Shepard's early influences include rock and roll, jazz and popular culture. At a time when lowbrow and highbrow art were less and less clearly defined, Shepard deftly incorporated non-literary influences like radio, movies, advertising and rock and roll in his unconventional plays. Less than four years after arriving in New York, Shepard's plays won the Village Voice newspaper's OBIE awards for his plays Chicago, Red Cross, and Icarus's Mother. From the beginning of his writing career, Shepard's work reveals he is more interested in consciousness than in reality. His plays are landscapes of emotions that contain states of mind inside the self. More than typical dramatic action or the typical character and story arc of a traditional play, Shepard's plays like Fool for Love resemble the surreal and often absurd and contradictory realm of dreams or the subconscious. His characters such as the ones in Fool for Love have no tragic flaw or fateful quest. They sort through the emotional tumult of their lives in a power struggle where identity is vague, time is cyclical, and the past haunts the present. As in a dream, memories are often idealized and altered to suit the needs of the dreamer.

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

2

Shepard's work seems to run parallel with his own journey to come to terms with his identity. He has been attributed as saying, "I preferred a character that was constantly unidentifiable, shifting through the actor, so that the actor could almost play anything, and the audience was never expected to identify with the character." So different and yet sharing attributes with his father, Shepard's life has been one of creating and playing roles. Newsweek once featured Shepard on the cover with the title, "Leading Man, Playwright, Maverick." After 1985, Shepard starred in over fifteen feature films while staging only two new plays. Shepard's career in acting has often overshadowed his enormous influence on theater. This Hollywood star status heightened with his relationship to Oscar-winning actress, Jessica Lange. Shepard wrote Fool for Love shortly after breaking up with his wife O-Lan to be with Jessica Lange. In a letter to his friend and virtuoso collaborator, Joe Chaikin, Shepard described his play, Fool for Love as "the outcome of all this tumultuous feeling I've been going through this past year…it's a very emotional play and in some ways embarrassing for me to witness but somehow necessary at the same time." Few writers manage to elevate higher than the sensationalism of confessional drama, but Shepard's allegory for his own loss and love rises above and provides us with an intensely powerful personal drama that draws us in with its manic depiction of ill-fated love. Plot May, Eddie, and the Old Man are on stage when the lights come up—the Old Man separated physically from May and Eddie either on a different platform or another dividing convention of the set. In a low-budget motel room on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert where May has been living, Eddie and May sit without speaking to each other—she with her head between her knees over the side of the bed, and he in a chair. The only sound is that of Eddie fidgeting with his glove and bucking strap. The Old Man sits in rocking chair next to a bottle of whiskey. Though he talks to the actors, the Old Man only exists in May and Eddie's minds. Eddie tries to get May to speak to him. He reassures May that he is staying with her and will not leave her again. May holds on to Eddie's legs desperately but will not speak. May is torn between wanting Eddie to leave and to stay. She accuses him of having an affair with a rich woman. Eddie denies it and asks for sympathy from May by telling her how far he drove to see her and that he missed her desperately. May is slightly moved by his feelings but then remembers his affair with the woman she calls "the Countess." May accuses Eddie of sleeping with the Countess regularly. Eddie presents to May a dream that they will move back into the trailer together to Wyoming. Just as they are about to kiss, May knees Eddie in the groin. May exits triumphantly to the bathroom as Eddie suffers and talks to the Old Man who has watched the play until this point. He asks Eddie if he is basically a "fantasist" or someone who makes things up. May returns with a change of clothing. Eddie offers to leave again and this time May who has transformed from her dowdy clothes into a sexy red dress and black heels tells Eddie that he better leave because she has a date. Eddie gets angry at May and goes outside. While Eddie is gone, May runs and grabs her suitcase from under the bed. Eddie reenters with a bottle of tequila and a shotgun in his hands. He offers May some tequila but she declines saying she's "on the wagon." Eddie and May discuss May's upcoming date. The Old Man speaks to May and tells her a story about a time when he, May's mother, and baby May were driving in southern Utah and May would not stop crying. May hears Eddie coming back, leaps up, dropping her grief and takes a drink. Eddie returns and proposes that May introduce Eddie to her date as her cousin. May reports that she sees a Mercedes with a woman in it, and they hear the Mercedes drive away. Eddie sees that the Countess has blown out the windshield of his truck. As May and Eddie face off with one another, the Old Man talks to the audience about how neither May nor Eddie resembles him. Another car arrives, this time with May's date, Martin. He thinks May is being attacked by Eddie and after a short scuffle, throws Eddie to the ground. May breaks up the fight and introduces Eddie as her cousin. Eddie and Martin talk, and Eddie reveals that he is May's half-sister and that they "fooled around" in high school before they knew of their blood relationship. Eddie tells Martin about the day he found about his father's secret life with May's mother. The Old Man occasionally contributes his point of view. May is angry because Eddie told his side of the story to Martin. May tells the story from her point of view and the way it affected her mother and her youth with her mother who was always desperately waiting for the Old Man to come back. May ends her story by saying that when her mother tried to stop Eddie and May from having a sexual relationship, Eddie's mother shot herself in the head.

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

3

The Old Man is surprised and disturbed by this revelation, claiming no one ever told him that part of the story. Eddie adds that his mother killed herself with the Old Man's shotgun. There is an explosion and Martin looks out the window and tells them that Eddie's horse trailer is ablaze and the horses have been let loose. Eddie says he is going out to see the damage that the Countess has done and promises to be right back. May packs her suitcase and tells Martin that Eddie is gone. May leaves with her packed suitcase and Martin stares out the window as the fire continues to blaze outside. Characters Eddie - The play's protagonist. Dressed in cowboy gear from head to toe, Eddie is a larger than life, multidimensional character. Some of his traits are not larger than life but ordinary weaknesses. For instance, he is an overly proud man with a drinking problem. Eddie is emblematic of the symbol he believes in. He believes in the myths of the idyllic American West, the cowboy as a hero who saves the day, and the American Dream of country living. Eddie habitually entangles himself in volatile romances. His passionate, competitive nature magnifies itself when he drinks and when he relates to his lovers May and "the Countess." He has trouble distinguishing between reality and fiction, lies and truth though he would not admit this. Eddie has a strange but complicit relationship with his father, the Old Man character in the play who exists only in May and Eddie's minds. Eddie shares his love of liquor with the Old Man and seems to share the same sense of humor. Eddie's character contains autobiographical elements of Sam Shepard's life. He wrote Fool for Love after leaving his wife, O-Lan, for movie actress, Jessica Lange and has a complicated past with his heavy-drinking father. Eddie simultaneously grapples with three tragedies. He has a complicated identity because of his complicated relationships with his family and lovers. Eddie is the son of a distant, unaffectionate, alcoholic father (the Old Man) who led a double life, the lover of a woman who is his half-sister, and the son of a woman who loved so hard that she killed herself upon discovering the Old Man's betrayal. Eddie's confusing and painful relationships contribute to his need to have ultimate control of every situation. Eddie instigates a full-blown power play by returning to May, repeating his cycle of abandonment and dependence with her. His life is chaotic especially now that he is attempting to have relationships with both the Countess and May. His need for control and order manifests itself in his macho attitude and over-the-top need to have power over other people. Eddie transforms his macro mess into a microcosm of order in the way he tries to keep May at his mercy and Martin confused and frightened of him with his verbal attacks. Eddie transforms his pain into an often cruel, malicious, and manipulative self-empowerment. He becomes threatened by the idea of May living independently, without him. Though he has begun a relationship with the Countess, Eddie wants to have his cake and eat it too, by keeping a door open in his relationship with May while continuing his Countess affair. Eddie is May's soul mate. They have a passionate attraction and magnetic feeling for each other that can be full of love or hate for one another. May will always be a part of Eddie and he knows that but is dealing with the fact that May, a mirror to his self, is not the right one for him anymore. He has returned not to get May as he says, but to try one desperate last attempt to try to be with her when he knows in his heart he has moved on and can never stay in one place for long. Another way Eddie tries to control May is by maligning her for having a date with Martin. Eddie is a hypocrite and unknowingly so when he insults her and becomes jealous even though he has left May and conducted an affair with another woman. Eddie shares several characteristics with his father, the Old Man, and fears that he is similar to his father. The Old Man has caused so much of Eddie's pain that he unknowingly repeats some of the Old Man's problems such as drinking heavily and having two lovers. Eddie does not see his behavior as desertion or neglect. He has wanderlust. He follows his dreams whenever they take his fancy and he does not see May's point of view. He has a distracting, passionate feeling for May that overwhelms him but it is not powerful enough to make him stay in one place. It will never weaken but it will also never be enough to satisfy his attention completely. May - Eddie's lover. Simultaneously strong-willed and vulnerable, May lives alone in a seedy motel room on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. May is a good match for Eddie in that she can keep up with his verbal gymnastics and power plays. She can make Eddie as jealous as he makes her and she can reject Eddie just as powerfully as he does her. On the flipside, May longs for Eddie and the largeness of their desire just as much as Eddie longs for May. May is thrown off-guard when Eddie arrives out of the blue and rekindles all of her recently subsiding emotions for him. She is madly in love with Eddie but it is a painful, confusing, consuming love. Her love for him does not fit into her life and the realistic issues that she must address to survive. May craves stability, affection, selfempowerment and independence. Eddie is contrary to any of these desires and in fact, prevents them from existing in May's life. She is torn between the fantasy and memory of their love and the reality and pain of the

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

4

day-to-day struggle they encounter being together. Her love for Eddie takes May over so completely that it is like a sickness or madness. She cannot focus on anything else but the two of them and the way they have wronged each other and how strong they feel for each other when Eddie is around. When Eddie leaves, the void is so great that it is almost not worth the time he is present. May feels similarly to the way her mother felt about the Old Man. May's mother was so passionate about him that she became extremely depressed whenever he left. May and Eddie see their past from different points of view. May sees the story of their past differently than Eddie because her mother was the one with whom the Old Man was cheating on Eddie's mother. Her mother was the secret who was always left behind. This influenced May in subtle but definite ways and now influences her in her feelings for Eddie, who abandons her much like the Old Man once abandoned her mother. Eddie does not see the situation of male abandonment from the same perspective as May. Because of this disparity, they interpret the status of their present situation and relationship from different, often conflicting vantage points. Though Eddie and May did not know they were related, May feels ashamed about their relationship. It continued after Eddie and May knew about their blood relation to one another. May attempts to deny and ignore the troubling familial aspect of their relationship. Eddie, on the other hand, seems to have accepted this problem. Making Eddie leave would allow May to continue to get over Eddie and to shut away the shame of their incest. Old Man - Eddie's and May's father. The Old Man appears only in the minds of May and Eddie. Martin does not hear or see him, adding to the dream-like qualities of the play. His surreal contributions to the play add an outsider's commentary with the perspective of an insider. He is the father of May and Eddie and yet he had so little to do with raising them that he is a stranger. The Old Man was with Eddie's mother for most of Eddie's childhood and simultaneously was having a secret relationship with May's mother in another town. He lived a double life that became revealed when Eddie and May were teenagers. The Old Man's presence in the play highlights the recurring themes of dual relationships, reality vs. illusion, lies vs. truth and the way stories and memories mutate and change as different people remember the same event. Through Shepard's inclusion of the Old Man, we see the extent one person's selfish decisions can affect other people's lives for years to come and the way history may repeat itself or stop a pattern in abusive relationships and in families. Surreal, funny, offering a contrary point of view, the Old Man only exists in May and Eddie's minds even though we see and hear him onstage. His presence adds to the heightened dream-like quality of the play. He talks to Eddie and May mostly when only one of them is in the motel room and the other is outside or in the bathroom. Because of this, he acts as an audience and response to the subconscious thoughts of Eddie and May. His conversations with May and Eddie seem to take place on the landscape of their inner thoughts made real on stage. For instance, he speaks to Eddie after Eddie has been tricked by May when she kisses him and then knees him in the groin. He also talks to May when she is crying over Eddie and moving slowly across the walls of the room alone. The Old Man keeps them company when they are alone and yet haunts them. His presence is a reminder of their complicated past and the shame of their incestuous relationship. His drinking habit is repeated in the aggressive drinking of May and Eddie and his two-timing is repeated in Eddie's poor juggling of his relationship with both May and the Countess. The Old Man offers different points of view on May and Eddie's past and for the most part denies any fault in their present troubled state. He calls Eddie "a fantasist," perhaps a reference to Sam Shepard's father's attitude towards his son's role as a playwright, who imagines things for a living, and also Eddie's characteristic of being an idealist who imagines a better future for himself and is possible of believing in his own illusions. The Old Man believes in illusions himself and that trait is repeated in May and Eddie. When he was younger, the Old Man convinced himself he could balance two lives without consequences. Now he believes that the unattainable woman of his dreams, Barbara Mandrell, a picture in his imagination, is his wife. That is the perfect solution for the Old Man, to be content with a pretty fictional life that is pleasing to the imagination and impossible to hold on to for long. Martin - A simple, innocent, and kind man who lives in a town near May's hotel. Martin is a large man who works maintenance for places around town like the high school stadium. Martin's innocence to sexual affairs and the kind of volatile passion that May and Eddie exhibit before his entrance creates a dream-like quality to his appearance. It is as if Martin has stumbled into May and Eddie's surreal landscape and does not know why he is there or how he fits in. He is an audience to their conflicting stories and an involuntary sufferer to their verbal abuse and power struggle. Martin represents the hopeful but dull life ahead of May if she chooses to let go of Eddie for good. He is also an unknowing competitor to Eddie. By nature Martin is uncompetitive, even offering to leave Eddie and May alone; he makes Eddie's personality appear all the more absurd and ridiculous. The play ends with Martin looking out of the window at the fiery ball of Eddie's truck. He seems like a lost

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

5

traveler swept up briefly in the storm of Eddie and May's life and dropped back to the ground suddenly and alone to sort out for himself the tumult that just brushed his own, simple life for a night. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes A Cycle of Abandonment and Returning At the beginning of the play, May sits in silent protest to what she considers to be Eddie's unfair, badly timed, and surprising return to her life. Eddie shows up in May's life right when she thought she was over Eddie. To her, his arrival rips open healing wounds that she was trying to forget. May prevents Eddie from getting close to her again because she resents him for leaving her alone in the trailer and having an affair with the Countess behind her back while promising to come back soon—a promise she thinks he makes frequently and never fulfills. Though May is furious at Eddie for abandoning her alone in the middle of nowhere, she is proud of the steps she has taken to live on her own in a new place in a new town. Eddie's return to her makes her hate him because it brings up all of the pain he has caused her and reminds her of her love for Eddie. May's love for Eddie also hurts because she knows it is a love that can never exist for long in peace. Because of their blood relation and their fiery spirits, Eddie and May are constantly haunted by their past. They challenge each other bitterly and know all the right buttons to push to get each other's goat (to annoy or irritate each other). Their love for each other is a competition to be the least vulnerable, the least needy, and the most willful and strong, yet their desire and love for each other makes them reveal their weaknesses to each other. Eddie's return troubles May because, right when she thought she could live without Eddie, he has confirmed her belief in her need for him. Ironically, that need is so painful that she knows she needs him to go away. Throughout the play, she swings back and forth from asking Eddie to leave and asking him to stay. Eddie threatens to leave and then alternately, refuses to leave. Their relationship is a seesaw of abandonment and returning that is repeated over and over again in the play, as May retreats to the bathroom or Eddie goes outside the motel and then comes back. They repeat this pattern throughout the play and it is suggested that the whole event of Eddie leaving and suddenly returning has been repeated over the years. Co-dependence Eddie and May cannot live with or without each other. They feel destined to be together because of their common past and their mutual love, but the details of their past prevents them from having a healthy relationship. Their common love and past experience binds them together but their personalities and their knowledge of their blood relation tears them apart at the seams. Their incestuous relationship and the repetition of their love and hate, abandonment and reunions cause Eddie and May to be miserable when they are together or apart. Never whole without each other, Eddie and May know that they have met their match and soul mate in life in each other but are discovering again and again that a perfect reflection of oneself does not necessarily make the best life partner. Eddie and May clung to each other as teenagers because they were magnetically attracted to one another and because they both had so much in common. Both May and Eddie came from unstable households in the same Southwestern region of the United States. Both Eddie and May loved mothers who were dependent on an unstable, alcoholic, and often absent man. It just so happens that the man was the same man, the Old Man, who is father to both Eddie and May though he did not participate in many fatherly duties. May and Eddie were brought together through their common suffering and their witness to troubled adults, but the knowledge of their incestuous relationship complicated the relationship and foreshadowed its improbability and doom. Love as desire and repulsion Eddie repeats the sins of his father, the Old Man, in his attempt at juggling relationships with May and the Countess. Throughout Eddie and May's childhoods, the Old Man alternately abandoned both Eddie and May's mothers. He left both women distraught and tortured by their passionate love for the same man—a man who never fully gave himself to one woman, and always abandoned them to return at an unannounced date. May feels a similar pain to her mother and has decided not to let her love for a wandering man like Eddie rule her life and her emotions. However, the knowledge that Eddie has lost May and that May cannot live with Eddie saddens both of them and leaves them each alone to face their future without each other. As the play suggests, however, that future will inevitably involve additional emotional reunions and necessary, but painful instances of abandonment. May hates Eddie for leaving her and loves him for returning. She hates him for returning because it conjures up her hateful feelings for Eddie's desertion. Eddie seems to have put the knowledge of their blood relation behind

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

6

him but this knowledge haunts May and shames her. Beside her self-disgust for succumbing to Eddie's seductions whenever he returns to her, May's love for Eddie is tainted by the knowledge of their incest. May is disgusted with herself for giving Eddie second chances and she is repulsed by the familial nature of her sexual relationship with Eddie. Motifs Power struggle Eddie and May compete ruthlessly with one another to end up on top in their personal and year-long power struggle. Both Eddie and May want the other to desire them. However, neither one wants to lose the position of admitting they desire to the other. They both want to remain powerful enough to resist the other's desire. Eddie tries to seduce May by telling her how much he sacrificed to come and see her. Eddie admits to missing May desperately. May is partly moved by Eddie's words but cannot get past the idea that Eddie has been having a relationship with the Countess. Eddie's defense is weak against her accusations. Eddie offers to leave instead of admitting to his affair. The thought of Eddie leaving again makes May upset. She tells Eddie about her date who is arriving shortly. This spins Eddie into jealousy. Both May and Eddie are jealous of the other's new relationships, and May will not take Eddie back. She does kiss him but then knees Eddie in the groin. Masculinity Eddie feels the need to prove his manhood to May throughout the play. He attempts to win May back while simultaneously keeping alive his affair with the woman they call the Countess. Eddie shows off his rodeo skills to May by lassoing his rope around the bedposts. He is an egoist who becomes even more boastful when he drinks. Eddie carries in a bottle of tequila and a shotgun at one point in the play. Attempting to show May how strong his tolerance is, he drinks a lot of the bottle by himself and threatens May and her mysterious date, who has yet to arrive. Being a man's man—full of bravery, taking risks and having one's way with women is Eddie's ideal. He expects May's date to be nothing but "a punk chump in a two dollar suit or something." Or at least this is what he hopes. Even when Eddie sees that Martin is harmless he continues to threaten and intimidate him. Eddie shares many traits with the stereotypical western man or cowboy, though his personality and past make him a more complicated character, whose depth and strivings go beyond the archetype he puts up on a pedestal and emulates. Memory and point of view May and Eddie's differ in their interpretation of their past and present relationship. The way these individuals remember the past and the way that each one interprets these events contributes to the shaping of their identity. May refuses to take Eddie back because she does not want to repeat the mistakes her mother made and mistakes that she herself has made again and again. She also feels ashamed about her blood relation to Eddie and wants to put those thoughts behind her. On the other hand, Eddie tries to juggle both May and the Countess because, like his father, he does not view a wandering, two-timing identity as negative. He is not bothered much anymore by his blood relation to May and he sees the repeated acts of abandonment as May's fault, not his own. May and Eddie's relative ability to move on with their lives relates to the interpretation of their memories. Their painful, complicated past plagues their present with the version of the story they happen to remember or believe in. Their memories and sense of history defines them as individuals. Their contradictory interpretation of their memories of their shared past colors their present conflict. Shepard seems to be saying that individuals' traumatic memories shape each person differently and each person's tolerance for pain varies from individual to individual and is not always compatible. Symbols Barbara Mandrell The imaginary picture of Barbara Mandrell that the Old Man sees on the invisible wall is real to him because he sees her in his imagination. In his mind he is married to this country star. He calls her, "the woman of my dreams." This has a double meaning. One, because she is a star she is an unattainable romantic figure who is larger than life because of her stardom and second because she is unattainable by the senses because she is in the Old Man's mind. The Old Man describes her picture as "realism." He sees realism as the thing that an individual decides to call reality for oneself and believe in, even if what one believes is not necessarily based on reality. His strange sense of reality permeates the feeling of the unrealistic play as well as the mutating emotions of its characters. Black Mercedes Benz The Countess's Mercedes Benz is never actually seen on stage but imagined through the description of May's character, who sees it outside of the motel room door. May describes the car as a "big, huge, extra-long, black,

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

7

Mercedes Benz." May seems to emphasize the size of the car because to her it is solid evidence that Eddie lied to her about his affair with the Countess. The car is exaggerated and flashy—a tangible object that flaunts Eddie's new relationship in May's face as it is symbolic of power and status—things which May lacks. The car stands out in the environs of the small, dusty, middle-of-nowhere-town where May lives and represents an outside, far away, glamorous world she cannot be a part of, which Eddie has now joined. The car also represents May's jealousy and the way she has inflated her feelings of jealousy. May says that the car looks exactly like the car she always pictured the Countess in, and one gets the sense that May has created the arrival of the car in her mind, not in reality, as in a bad dream. Fire The play ends with the image of fire blazing from outside the hotel window as Martin stares out at the scene of Eddie's car burning. The blaze glows around the actors remaining on stage as a testament to the passion and sins of May and Eddie. The fire is similar to their relationship in that the more it burns the more energy it creates all the while, destroying the very thing it feeds on. May and Eddie likewise are more potent, alive and engaging people in each other's presence—their passion stirs their deepest feelings but their passion is self-destructive. First section of major events Summary May, Eddie, and the Old Man are on stage when the lights come up—the Old Man separated physically from May and Eddie, either on a different platform or another dividing convention of the set. In a low-budget motel room on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert where May has been living, Eddie and May sit without speaking to each other—she with her head between her knees over the side of the bed, and he in a chair. The only sound is that of Eddie fidgeting with his glove and bucking strap. The Old Man sits in rocking chair next to a bottle of whiskey. Though he eventually talks to the actors, the Old Man only exists in May and Eddie's minds. Eddie tries to get May to speak to him. He talks soothingly to her and offers to get her something soothing to drink. He reassures May that he is staying with her and will not leave her again. May holds on to Eddie's legs desperately but will not speak. He tries to gently push her off of him and she lashes out on him punching his chest with her fists. May is torn between wanting Eddie to leave and to stay. She accuses him of having an affair with a rich woman. Eddie denies it. Eddie asks for sympathy from May by telling her how far he drove to see her and that he missed her desperately. May is slightly moved by his feelings but then remembers his affair with the woman she calls "the Countess." Eddie admits taking the Countess out to dinner once, and then twice. May accuses Eddie of sleeping with the Countess regularly. Eddie denies this but May does not fall for it, saying she will believe the truth because, "It's less confusing." This is the first in a series of matters in which May and Eddie's interpretation of the truth will contradict. Eddie presents to May a dream that they will move back into the trailer together to Wyoming, where he has moved, and live a pleasant country life with chickens, a vegetable garden, and horses. May has heard this story before. It does not seduce her. Eddie suggests that he will leave. May lets down her guard and kisses Eddie. Just as they seem to allow their passion to overwhelm their differences again, May knees Eddie in the groin. He doubles over on the floor. May exits triumphantly to the bathroom as Eddie suffers on the floor and talks to the Old Man, who has watched the play until this point. He asks Eddie if he is basically a "fantasist" or someone who makes things up. Then the Old Man asks Eddie to look at an imaginary picture on the wall. Eddie looks at it, playing along with the Old Man's game. The Old Man claims that the picture is of Barbara Mandrell and that he is married to her. He asks Eddie if he would believe that. Eddie says no. The Old Man says that, in his mind, he is married to her. He calls that "realism." Analysis The Old Man, May, and Eddie begin the play together without entrances. The play begins after Eddie has undermined May's new life by unexpectedly appearing at the hotel room where she now lives. Shepard does not show May's initial reaction to Eddie's entrance but instead shows us her reaction to the realization of what his appearance means to her. The first moment of the play is the sound of Eddie's bucking strap squeaking in the dark. The play repeats several non-human sounds that act as rhythm and percussion sections to the blues and rock and roll riffs and tiffs of the lovers. May sits with her head and torso hanging over the bed between her knees. She sits in a crumpled position with her hair over her face as if she is protecting herself from seeing, hearing or acknowledging Eddie's arrival. From Eddie's pleading, we can tell that he has been soothing May and encouraging her to accept his presence for some time. May is in a state of denial. Her emotions are so Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

8

contradictory and deeply felt that she stays idle, perhaps to protect herself from opening herself up to the pain and the desire she feels towards Eddie. The Old Man is silent, rocking in his rocking chair and drinking whiskey from his Styrofoam cup. It is up to the director how to stage the Old Man, but whatever their choice may be, the Old Man will not be in the hotel room. This lends a sense of surrealism to the play and an added dimension that contributes to the dream-like quality of the piece. The play represents a psychological and emotional landscape of Eddie and May's minds, symbolized in the presence of the Old Man, whose past is intertwined with Eddie and May's present consciousness. May appears torn physically and emotionally with her feelings for Eddie. May physicalizes her mixed emotions of longing and repulsion for Eddie. She grabs Eddie and will not let go. When Eddie asks her to let go, she does so and repeatedly hits him in the chest. It is as if her need for him, represented in her clinging to his limbs, is then transformed into hatred for him, represented in her attacking him. This mix of feelings is the basic premise of the play. The play's thesis seems to be about strong emotions and the struggle to fight, succumbing to emotions that lead to events one knows one should avoid. In other words, the characters in Fool for Love do things and feel things they know they should avoid but do not. Eddie denies his affair with a rich woman, "the Countess." May does not believe his side of the story that changes as May interrogates him. Eddie first admits to taking the Countess out to dinner once, then twice. May does not believe in the sincerity of Eddie's return to her or in the denial about his affair with the Countess. She keeps her guard up and promises to get him when he least expects it. She proves true to her word when May knees Eddie in the groin after they share a kiss. This surprising move shows Eddie that May is not easily seduced. She has been through Eddie's cycle of abandonment and return many times and has decided to be resolute about staying apart from him and their relationship together. Her kiss is perhaps part desire, part entrapment, but the end result of her attack on Eddie shows how strong she is now independent from Eddie. Eddie's presentation to May of a life together in the country, living in their trailer, disgusts May. The dream of living there with chickens and horses is not a new story. May has heard it before and she does not hear anything romantic in the idea. Eddie presents a picture of a stable, self-sustaining existence that May knows all too well; this is too good to be true because Eddie is incapable of staying in one place for long. He shares traits with the stereotypical rambling man, always moving from town to town, woman to woman. Baffled by the kneed groin and the rejection of his "country dream-life," Eddie is left alone with the Old Man while May retreats to the bathroom. The Old Man speaks for the first time, questioning Eddie's role in life as a fantasist. He seems to be asking Eddie and Sam Shepard simultaneously about their roles as storytellers. The Old Man's explanation to Eddie of his imaginary picture of Barbara Mandrell further confuses the boundaries of reality and illusion in the play. He calls the imaginary image realism because he sees it in his mind. As playgoers, we, the audience to Fool for Love, continue to travel into the depths of Eddie and May's minds and the bending rules of reality in their contradictory story of mixed emotions and confused desires. Second section of major events Summary May returns with a change of clothing. She changes clothes in front of Eddie as she tells Eddie that she hates him and that her feelings for him are like a sickness. Eddie offers to leave again and this time May, who has transformed from her dowdy clothes into a sexy red dress and black heels, tells Eddie that he better leave because she has a date. This begins another power struggle. Eddie gets angry at May and goes outside. While Eddie is gone, May runs and grabs her suitcase from under the bed. She runs to the bathroom and comes back to the suitcase with her hands full of her things. She hears Eddie coming back inside, so she throws the suitcase back under the bed and sits on the bed brushing her hair as if that is what she has been doing the whole time. Eddie reenters with a bottle of tequila and a shotgun in his hands. He offers May some tequila but she declines saying she's "on the wagon." Eddie laughs as if he has heard that one before. May senses Eddie's increasing antagonism. She warns him not to be mean to her date, whom she describes as a "gentle person." Eddie's feathers get ruffled when May calls her date a "man." He plays a power game with her, saying that if the date were important, May would have called him "a guy or something." Eddie boasts that this man will never mean as much to May as Eddie does to her. May asks Eddie to get out of her life. Eddie makes a toast and leaves. May cries. The Old Man speaks to May as she clings to the walls of the motel room and weeps. He tells her a story about a time when he, May's mother, and baby May were driving in southern Utah and May would not stop crying. The Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

9

Old Man took her outside into a dark field to stop her from crying but he became frightened at the sight of a herd of cattle that he could not see in the dark. The cows' mooing shut up baby May for the rest of the trip. May does not acknowledge the Old Man through her weeping. May hears Eddie coming back, leaps up, dropping her grief and takes a drink. Eddie comes back in and starts throwing his lasso around the bedposts. Eddie tells May he's decided that May made up the date. May tries to leave but Eddie runs after her and carries her back onstage kicking and screaming. Eddie proposes that May introduce Eddie to her date as her cousin. As they fight, a car's headlights sweep through the window. May goes to the door to see if her date has arrived but she reports to Eddie that she sees a "big, huge, extra-long, black Mercedes Benz" with a woman behind the wheel. Eddie drops down to the floor and tells May to do the same thing. Eddie pushes May away from the door and slams the door shut. A loud gunshot goes off and we hear the shattering of glass and a car horn honking one long note. May accuses Eddie of telling the Countess where he was going and of her following him to her motel. Eddie does not admit that he knows the woman in the Mercedes Benz but later seems to know that it is the Countess. Analysis May transforms from a dowdy woman in a blue jean skirt to a sensual, appealing figure in a tight red dress and heels. She changes her clothes in front of Eddie, showing how familiar, domestic and comfortable they are with each other from years of on and off-again relations. May's preparation for her date seems genuine—contrary to Eddie's accusations that her date does not exist. May's change of clothes also heightens her sexual appeal and must heighten Eddie's interest in having her for himself and not sharing her with her date. May's transformation also alludes to the Old Man's description of realism. Perhaps dream-like, May dressed in red appears the way Eddie pictures May in his memories, at her best. Her exhibited sexual appeal is now more potent and expressive. Perhaps May wishes to test Eddie and see if he can resist her. Perhaps May's red dress is symbolic of both the danger and the pleasure she represents to Eddie or the pride she has in herself and her future without Eddie. May and Eddie now struggle with the fact that she has a date tonight. Previously, in the play, May would not get any closer to Eddie or let him back into her emotional life because of her suspicion about his affair with the Countess. Now that Eddie knows about May's date, his own ego is bruised. He hypocritically punishes May verbally for her having a first date though he is conducting a full-blown affair on the side. With the knowledge of May's date, Eddie becomes more competitive and combative with May. He insults her taste by saying her date "must be a punk chump in a two dollar suit" and her looks, saying he thought she would be "all dried up by now." Eddie wants to meet the man who might replace him and intimidates May into thinking that he will stay around to ruin the date, perhaps by picking a fight with the man. Like a cowboy in an old western, Eddie prepares for a showdown with the mystery man, May's date, "Martin." Eddie's need to prove his manhood is displayed with a bravado that frightens and upsets May. Eddie leaves again and May is so torn by the roller coaster of emotions linked to Eddie's cycle of abandonment that she cries to herself as the Old Man tells her a story about when she cried a lot during a trip when she was a baby. The Old Man's story takes the sound of her crying and associates that with the sound of her crying as a baby. The story reveals the Old Man's compassion and sense of humor. It might be the only story May has heard of her childhood from her father, the Old Man, and there is something loving and normal about it. The way he talks about his concern for the crying baby May and the impression he creates of her mother forms a bond between the Old Man and May, of which we were previously unaware. The surprise ending of the Old Man's story, when he reveals the fact that what got May to be quiet was a herd of cows, might represent the unexpectedness in life; there can be surprise and humor in ordinary things amidst pain and suffering. Her reaction to Eddie's arrival, like her infant reaction to the cows, might change from crying to muted acceptance when she least expects it. The cow story also foreshadows May's turn from mourning her love for Eddie to defiantly shutting away the pain as she does when Eddie returns to the room. Eddie and May wrestle to the ground after the Countess drives up in her Mercedes Benz. The car is described by May as a "big, huge, extra-long, black Mercedes Benz." May's exaggerated description creates the impression that the Countess and her car are larger than life. In fact, because we never see it on stage, everything outside the motel room becomes surreal, warped, mutated and accentuated. Outside the motel room, life is otherworldly, distant and mysterious—as if appearing from a void or midstream in one's consciousness as in a dream. The Countess appears more like a figure than a character. Her invisible presence reminds us of the divide between Eddie's new life with her and his older life with May. The Countess differs greatly in economic class, space, and time from May, who appears bound to her lifeless room. May sees the Countess's car as large and ostentatious.

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

10

May tells Eddie that the Countess is driving the car "I always pictured her in." The Countess's car represents May's jealousy and the world of Eddie's new secret life. In real life, the Countess also represented Shepard's betrayal of his wife, O-Lan, for the actress Jessica Lange. The Countess exemplifies Shepard's courage to write self-critical autobiographic material, revealing his very personal emotional struggle without the simplicity or ease of most confessional pieces. His play rises above the confessional because it grapples with universal human emotions. The grand scale of Shepard's characters and landscape befits the amorphous scale and landscape of the human consciousness that he explores. Third section of major events Summary Eddie and May hear the Mercedes drive away. Eddie sees that the Countess has blown out the windshield of his truck. May tries to turn the lights back on but Eddie will not let her. Eddie decides they have to leave or keep the lights out because the Countess will surely come back. As May and Eddie face off with one another, the Old Man talks to the audience about how neither May nor Eddie resemble him. Eddie tells May he will not leave without her. May says she does not love Eddie anymore. Headlights cross through the window again. Eddie tries to push May into the bathroom but she gets away from him, screams threats and teases the Countess from the doorway. It turns out the driver of the car is May's date, Martin, not the Countess. He thinks May is being attacked by Eddie and after a short scuffle, throws Eddie to the ground. May breaks up the fight and introduces Eddie as her cousin. While May gets ready to go in the bathroom, Eddie verbally intimidates Martin, though Martin does not challenge Eddie or even know that Eddie is his competition. Eddie confuses the situation by negating May's description of their relationship as cousins. Eddie will not let Martin leave. Eddie reveals that he is May's halfsister and that they "fooled around" in high school before they knew of their blood relationship. Eddie tells Martin about the day he found about his father's secret life with May's mother. The Old Man occasionally contributes his point of view. Martin cannot hear him. May comes out of the bathroom towards the end of Eddie's story and listens in silence. When Eddie finishes, May slams the bathroom door shut and screams at Eddie for involving Martin in the story and getting the story "all turned around." May tells the story from her point of view, and the way it affected her mother, and her youth with her mother, who was always desperately waiting for the Old Man to return. May's story is about how her mother finally decided to track down their father in his other life and found him at Eddie's house eating dinner. May ends her story by saying that, when her mother tried to stop Eddie and May from having a sexual relationship, Eddie's mother shot herself in the head. The Old Man is surprised and disturbed by this revelation, claiming that no one ever told him that tragic part of the story. He pleads with Eddie to be on the male side of the story and deny this pain that he caused his mother, but Eddie refuses. Eddie adds that his mother killed herself with the Old Man's shotgun. The Old Man tries to justify his actions in the past to May and Eddie but they ignore him. They move toward each other and embrace. Headlights flash across the stage again and we hear a loud collision. Glass shatters, an explosion goes off and horses scream and hooves gallop outside the motel room. Martin looks out the window and tells them that Eddie's horse trailer is ablaze and the horses have been let loose. Eddie says he's going out to see the damage that the Countess has done and promises to be right back. May packs her suitcase and tells Martin that Eddie is gone. She leaves with her packed suitcase. The Old Man talks about the imaginary picture of Barbara Mandrell on the wall. He describes her as the woman of his dreams. Martin stares out the window as the fire continues to blaze outside. Analysis Breaking what would be a pattern of threes, May's date Martin shows up at the motel room instead of the Countess, who has pulled up in her Mercedes Benz twice. Martin has in common with the play-going audience the fact that he has no previous knowledge of the relationship between May and Eddie before "meeting" them. He is innocent. He wanders into their strange and twisted power struggle without the experience of passion or confusion that they have in their lives. Martin has led a simple, easy-going life, without passionate love or hate, without large dreams or disappointments. His presence heightens the absurdity of May and Eddie's situation. Martin's arrival raises the stakes of May and Eddie's decision about their future—together or apart, with new loves. Martin instills the environment with hopelessness for May's future. Martin is too different from Eddie; he Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

11

is passive and naïve, innocent and doe-eyed. He brings a sober, provincial personality to the motel room. He is no match for Eddie in sex appeal, imagination or challenge. But his banality does deeply contrast May's abnormal incestuous relationship with Eddie, an egocentric, alcoholic, insecure brat. Where Eddie can never commit to a relationship or have a stable home life, Martin could. Martin is caring, curious, sensitive, and kind. His largeness is not intimidating but endearing, though strong. He has genuine concern for May though he barely knows her. May has found someone who could fill a void that Eddie can never fill, but his lack of challenge and lukewarm sexuality clearly predicts that Martin and May would never go on date number two, if they ever were a date number one. Ironically, May sticks up for Martin and Martin sticks up for May, as if he they were brother and sister, when it is Eddie and May who, we now gather, are half-brother and sister. Twisting the concept of truth and fiction and re-emphasizing the notion of a dual set of perspectives on their story, Eddie and May cannot agree on what version of the story to tell Martin. May says they are cousins, but when she goes into the bathroom, Eddie disagrees with her, telling Martin that they are not cousins. This puts Martin in an uncomfortable position. He is in the dark about the state of affairs between May and Eddie. Eddie confrontationally challenges Martin, who is helpless against the indomitable Eddie. Martin does not try to beat Eddie at his game of verbal insults and lightly veiled threats. Instead, Martin simply allows Eddie to throw his verbal punches and, eventually, to tell his story. Somehow, Martin seems to empathize with Eddie and senses that Eddie needs to tell his story. Eddie's story paints a picture of the Old Man's philandering, as a silent mystery revealed to Eddie one night during a silent walk. Eddie describes the Old Man as a passive, uninvolved, and selfish father figure, who eerily formed a bond with his son Eddie by sharing with him his secret of having an affair with another woman, May's mom. Eddie says that May and he fell in love that night when he was introduced to her, by seeing her in her mother's doorway, though that romantic scene is absent from May's version. May's version of the story differs from Eddie's because it is told from the perspective of the daughter of the "other woman." We get the sense that Eddie's mother had the Old Man around more of the time and that May's mother was a secret to her. May's mother knew there was another woman but did not know where or who the woman was. May's mother desperately became tired of being run around and decided to cross the line of her silent, but understood, agreement with the Old Man by seeking out the other woman who had the attention of the Old Man. May's mother's quest to seek out Eddie's mother drove her to a sort of madness that May resented. She repeats her mother's patter by having a passionate, consuming relationship with Eddie, a man who also has two women and cannot stay in one place. May's witness to her mother's crazed pursuit of Eddie's mother causes her to resent Eddie because she knows he treats her similarly to how her mother was treated by the Old Man. May refuses to suffer the way her mother suffered. She will not follow Eddie but will give up on him until he returns again, if he ever does. Eddie and May realize that though they seem destined to be linked forever they cannot remain together. Eddie leaves and May knows he will not come back. May leaves into her unknown future. The Old Man is left to grapple with the wounds he has caused others and Martin remains bewildered and thoughtful about the lives he has just crossed. Important Quotations Explained “You keep comin' up here with this lame country dream life with chickens and vegetables and I can't stand any of it.” Throughout the years, Eddie has continuously presented May with the hope of fulfilling his dream of living together in their trailer. May has tried this life with Eddie and it never rises to Eddie's expectations. May sees the harsh reality within the fantasy of Eddie's dream. She would rather work hard, make an honest living, and prove her independence. May would rather have someone by her side, someone she can trust to stay with her, than have Eddie some of the time. Her dream is more concrete and reality-driven, whereas Eddie, who believes in the fantasy that he can have May and the Countess at the same time, wants to believe that if May and Eddie just followed his dream, everything would work out well. Eddie left May alone the last time they lived in the trailer. Eddie sees the dream of subsistent farming as a fulfilling way to prove his manhood by providing for May. However, his fantasy is simply that. Eddie would not really be content living alone with May in the country. “I thought you were supposed to be a fantasist, right? Isn't that basically the deal with you? You dream things up. Isn't that true?”

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

12

The Old Man sounds the way one might imagine Sam Shepard's own father asking him about his career. As a playwright and actor, Shepard took a very different path than his Air Force retired, and later, farmer father. Shepard's artistic path might be perceived as unpractical by his father's generation. The Old Man expresses this sentiment to Eddie. Perhaps the Old Man has been far away from Eddie for some time and has heard through word of mouth or by letter or phone call what Eddie has been up to lately. The only indication of Eddie's occupation is when May calls him a stuntman. Whether or not Eddie is indeed a stuntman, or if that is just a name May calls him to describe his risk-taking and love for rodeo and ranch activities, is not important. The Old Man describes Eddie as a "fantasist"; that applies to Eddie in the way he lives his life and views the world. Eddie has a hard time living in reality. He enjoys living in the moment, like when he decided to drive thousands of miles because he missed May's neck, but he cannot live with the truth. He denies his affair with the Countess even when she shows up at May's motel room. Eddie does not let the fact that he and May are siblings bother him or stop him in his pursuit of her as his lover. He also perceives his actions in the past with a silver lining instead of the way May sees them—as reprehensible and hurtful. Eddie says that lies are not lies if you believe in them. His perception of his life is an illusion. He decides for himself what is moral, what is true, and what is possible. This idealism is somewhat charming in Eddie, but also prevents him from facing his reality which includes the feelings of others, including May. “I get sick every time you come around. Then I get sick when you leave. You're like a disease to me. Besides, you got no right being jealous of me after all the bullshit I've been through with you.” May cannot live with or without Eddie. She is caught in his cycle of abandonment and returning. She cannot completely let go of her feelings for Eddie because a part of her still desires him when he arrives. When Eddie leaves, May is devastated, hurt and angry. She knows she cannot transform Eddie into a committed man, but she also knows she cannot find another man about whom she feels more passionate. Eddie effects May so much that he feels like something inside of her. She is consumed by his love when things between them are well, and she is consumed by the emptiness when he leaves. She is trapped unless she makes a decision to never see Eddie anymore. This is a decision May has made to get over Eddie once and for all. She hopes this diminishing of her feelings for Eddie will allow her to be free from his control. When Eddie arrives at the beginning of the play May tries her hardest to push him away and to stay closed to her feelings for him. Eddie reopens a wound in May that she has worked so hard to heal. Eddie also hurts May by denying his affair with the Countess. On top of this denial, Eddie has the gall to be jealous of May for preparing to go on a first date. May's speech here represents the vicious cycle she and Eddie find themselves in. The sickness and disease similes and metaphors she uses reflect her feelings of self-disgust for herself and hatred for Eddie that is caused by his lack of commitment and the incestuous nature of their relationship. The back and forth power struggle that the play's structure of exits and entrances suggests, and Eddie and May's conversations, are also summarized here in her paradoxical explanation of her feelings for Eddie. “And it turns out, there we were, standin' smack in the middle of a goddamn herd of cattle. Well, you never heard a baby pipe down so fast in your life.” The Old Man tells a story to May about a time when she was a baby. Because the Old Man's story takes place before May could possibly remember it, the story reveals some insight into May that she could not know herself. He tells the story to May when she is crying, overcome with the sadness of her torn emotions for Eddie. The Old Man seems to riff off of the idea of crying by telling her a story about one time when she cried as a baby and would not stop. Neither May's mother nor her father, the Old Man, could stop her from crying but a loud noise in the middle of a pitch black field that turns out to be the mooing of cows shut her up for the rest of their car trip. The Old Man takes great pleasure in telling May this story and enjoys this punch line so much it is as if he does not know the ending until he tells it. The comment about May piping down fast foreshadows her abrupt change in her disposition to Eddie. After crying all around the room during the Old Man's story, May abruptly stops crying when Eddie returns to the room from outside. The story reveals some compassion that the Old Man has and once had for May. It is probably the most fatherly he ever behaved toward her that she knows of. The story forms a bond in the audience's mind between May and the Old Man, though at this point in the play the audience probably would not yet know the nature of their relationship. “Don't pretend you don't know her. That's the kind of car a countess drives. That's the kind of car I always pictured her in.”

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

13

May chastises Eddie for lying to her about his affair with the Countess. When a black Mercedes Benz pulls up outside her motel room, May knows the woman sitting inside is the Countess—the woman Eddie's been sleeping with behind May's back. The grandeur and ostentatious model of the car inflates May's jealousy. Though Eddie will not admit to it and May has not spoken to the woman, May knows that the woman is the Countess, though she does not have any concrete evidence. May uses her intuition and even her fantasy of the Countess as her proof. This way of concluding the matter by proving her suspicion from her imagination lends a dream-like quality to the play and a surreal, illusion-filled quality to the scene. Many times we dream about things we are fixated on, for instance, a jealous reaction to something or someone might appear in our dreams. May has undoubtedly dreamed about the Countess, who she suspects is dating her ex-lover, Eddie and, in her dream or daydream, the Countess drove the type of car she sees before her eyes. This causes the audience to perceive a blurred line between the reality and illusion of what is before them on stage.

Master’s Degree. British and American Theatre. Monica Matei-Chesnoiu SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Fool for Love.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.