Thursday, August 03, 2006

Fast And Lewis

Fool For Love, Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, Saturday June 24 2006.

It's the day after the Wireless Festival, and rather than heading straight back to the Parallax View ranch, decide to stay in the smoke to catch up on some culture. With the competing attentions of the Germany v Sweden World Cup game on TV, the theatre is only half full, with many of those in attendance appearing to be young gentlemen, accompanied by what your correspondent can only euphemistically describe as 'benevolent uncle' types.

Sam Shepard's Fool For Love is set in a motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert, a one-set one-act 75 minute play with no intermission, in which most of the action takes place off-stage, either in the past that dooms the central destructive relationship, or the outside escalating drama of squealing tyres; gunfire and arson in the motel carpark. It's effectively a meditation on masculinity, with the great American hero (a cowboy) paralysed in a plot of Beckett-esque inertia as the sins of his father find him out and fuck him up.

Juliette Lewis lends a typical wiry, feral performance as the troubled May (a part played by Kim Basinger in the Robert Altman film adaptation), opposite an energetic Martin Henderson (hitherto best remembered for getting all gooey-eyed over Naomi Watts in The Ring re-make) as not-so-nice-guy Eddie, the cowboy who turns back up at her motel as she readies herself for a date with a decent man (Joe Duttine). And yet, surprisingly, it's Larry Lamb (perhaps most fondly remembered for raising an arch eyebrow at Kate O'Mara's pre-watershed nipple in TV's Triangle) who steals the show with a striking turn as the Old Man always on the periphery of Eddie's vision.

Not exactly laugh-a-minute fare then, although you'll no doubt be amused by the fact that yet again a trip to the theatre leads to your correspondent being chatted up by a woman a good few years his senior. This one has just written a film script (oh, haven't they all?), recommends a movie (Thank You For Smoking - 'it has a sex scene in it, I'm sure you'd like that') and enquires as to whether Dead Kenny is a guy or a man. 'I don't think that's for me to say' your trusty hack stonewalls before making his excuses and leaving via the fire exit, wondering whether he's just snubbed a world-famous author or a dotty old dear just out on day release. Somewhere amongst the smoke and mirrors, the truth is out there.

3 Comments:

Blogger Ben said...

So what you're saying is that at the theatre you're lustee, whereas at gigs you're luster?

10:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe she was impressed by the nsize of your ranch.

8:01 AM  
Blogger Dead Kenny said...

Ben, maybe it's just that I generally lustre.

Graybo, she wouldn't have been the first to be impressed by my range.
(Cue tumbleweed)

8:55 PM  

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