Introduction & Overview of Fool for Love by Sam Shepard

Fool for Love Introduction

Sam Shepard's Fool for Love is arguably the playwright's best known play. Focusing, as many of Shepard' s plays do, on the dark side of life in the West, Fool for Love was first produced at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in February, 1983, before moving to Off-Broadway at the Circle Repertory Theatre in May of that year. Shepard himself directed these original productions, winning Obie Awards for his writing and directing as well as the award for best new American play.

Critics gave Fool for Love mixed reviews. The play is primarily a struggle, mostly of words, between two on-again/off-again lovers, Eddie and May. By the end of the play, it is revealed that this is an incestuous relationship between half-siblings. Some of the dissenting critics found the dialogue between them, especially at the beginning of the play, to be cliched. Others believed that Shepard was covering...
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