Its been a while since I’ve seen a play with the last play I saw being over seven weeks ago so when I saw that Juliette Lewis was starring in Fool For Love with the hunky kiwi Martin Henderson I thought why not. I didn’t realise it at the time when I made bookings for this show but this is not the first time this play has been produced or even shown in the West End. In fact, it was even made into a movie back in 1985 starring the writer of the play, Sam Shepard, and Kim Basinger.

Fool for Love is a passionate, violent, rough and steamy affair. May and Eddie are on and off again lovers, and have been since their teenage years. They shouldn’t be together but can’t seem to live without each other. May is desperately trying to break their bond and Eddie seems to only want May on his terms – basically when there is a threat that he can’t have her, a threat that includes May’s latest beau.

There are only four characters in the play with May, Eddie, May’s latest beau and a strange old man who sits rocking the corner, so the play relies on all four characters acting their heart out. Juliette Lewis seems very well suited to May allowing her to embrace her true rock star self, and to once again play that white trash skanky female character, but at times came across as a little whiny and Martin Henderson is dreamy as Eddie the cowboy/stuntman and though he seemed to struggle with the accent early on settles with negligent ease into his character. The play is actually quite physical with both Juliette and Martin hitting the walls a number of times, a lot of moving to and fro and door slams (there is a lot of that!) emphasised by thunder.

Overall, Fool for Love was involving but I wouldn’t say mesmerising. Its very intense as you will have to focus for the entire play with no interval and really no breaks between the scenes and you may, like myself, find yourself wiggling around in your seat so your butt doesn’t get numb. I could also see where the story was going in the end and though a little shocking probably is less so in this day and age. An interesting drama to be sure but that’s pretty much all it is.