The Trinidad Theatre Workshop (TTW) has picked American playwright Sam Shepherd's surrealistic drama, Fool For Love, as its latest offering to the local theatre-going community.
Produced by Timmia Hearn Feldman, who is fresh from a memorable interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Fool For Love is a riveting excursion into a world of love and conflict and theatrical symbolism.
It is a play best rendered by a cast which is mindful of the dramatic challenges of Shepherd's romantic worst-case scenario set somewhere in American cowboy territory. The TTW was clearly up to the task when it previewed the play for the press at its Belmont headquarters last Friday.
Be on the lookout for yet another outstanding performance from Nickolai Salcedo, who plays the conflicted lover, Eddie, a rodeo stunt man who races in and out of the life of his forbidden romantic partner, May, played by Sindy Nurse. May is holed up in a run-down motel room with lots of alcohol and an unmade single bed.
Eddie returns after a long absence and insists on resuming a passionate romance. But, there's the question of Eddie's prior dalliances with a mysterious, wealthy "Countess" whom the audience never meets and May's flirtations with Martin (Arnold Goindhan) who later runs into Eddie in May's motel room.
But this is no mere bedroom farce.
The true story unfolds through the "Old Man" (Errol "Blood" Roberts) who is present throughout the play with revealing, linking narratives between full glasses of liquor and unheard (to the cast) commentaries on the unfolding action.
The Old Man is present, yet absent � an interactive spectre from the past through whom important details about Eddie and May are gradually revealed.
No better person than Roberts to play the part of the Old Man. This is a role that could have been rendered, by lesser players, with much more flair and colour. Instead, Roberts' tempered pace and crisp, measured dialogue invokes the ghost-like echoes of an intriguing story within an unfolding story. In the end, the Old Man is best not left unheard.
Goindhan's rendition of Martin also downplays what has been recognised by others as a likely homoerotic strand, linking Eddie's emotional candour before someone who was just moments before a violent romantic competitor and Martin's own surprising docility following an early scuffle.
The sensuous connection between Eddie and May is electric. Nurse and Salcedo could, as well, have overplayed the part but Hearn Feldman goes for more artful and subtle titillation.
Through the twists and turns of the action, love turns to hatred and then back to love. Eddie and May are subjects of forbidden passion. The Old Man knows the story and so does the audience.
None of this, though, is intended to end very well. And it doesn't.
This play is a 60-minute roller-coaster ride that should not be missed.
Fool For Love runs at the TTW, 23 Jerningham Junction from July 6-28. Thursday to Saturday at 8.00 pm and Sunday at 6.00 pm 624-8502 for more details.