Sam Shepard's FOOL FOR LOVE

WHEN: Oct. 3, 4, 9, 10 & 11 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 5 at 2 p.m. and Oct. 8 at 5 p.m.
WHERE: Russell Hall on the University of Southern Maine’s Gorham Campus
TICKETS: Students $7, Seniors/Faculty/Staff/Alumni $10, General public $14, Wednesday & high school matinees all tickets $5
BOX OFFICE: (207) 780-5151

Veteran USM director Professor William Steele throws the new season into gear this October with a stunning Sam Shepard drama full of shocking twists to challenge both his cast, as well as his audience. There is nowhere to hide in Shepard’s four-character play, studded with searing monologues beaming like a searchlights over a prison yard during a jailbreak.

Professor Steele, in his 42nd year of teaching and directing at USM, says Shepard’s play is the perfect story to set the 2008-09 season in motion.

“It’s a great story, and a good one for students because it’s psychologically complicated. It’s lead to a lot of great discussions about human nature,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do a Sam Shepard play on the main stage, and Fool for Love is one of my personal favorites.”

The play begins in a forgotten motel room, on the edge of a desert way out west. A pair of desperate lovers named May (Audra Curtis of Belfast, Maine) and Eddie (Charles Parker Newton of Fairfield, Conn.) try to untangle their twisted past. As the recriminations fly like bullets at a gunfight, the action becomes, at times, physically violent and the genuine nature of their relationship becomes apparent—they cannot get along with, or without, one another, yet neither can control their burning passion.

Meanwhile, a mysterious old man (Joe Mcleod) hovers over the pair, commenting wryly as their warped story unwinds. His place in the narrative only becomes clear as secrets are revealed and the true nature of Eddie and May’s tangled affair is made plain.

In the middle of this personal drama, a hapless young man, Martin, (Jordan Handren-Seavey of Harrison, Maine) stops by to take May to the movies and becomes the butt of Eddie's funniest and most humiliating jokes.

Eventually, May and Eddie tire of their struggle and embrace—but the respite is temporary and their love, a curse from the past which haunts them, will remain forever damned and hopeless.