Caroline Neff and Nick Gehlfuss Photo by Michael Brosilow

The story centers on May and Eddie who have crossed paths again (reunited is decidedly not the word for this coming together) as the audience immediately knows they have countless times before over the course of fifteen years and likely half their lives. Outside the motel room where May keeps the glasses in the medicine cabinet, away from the germs, the Old Man rocks and sips liquor from a brown paper bag, silent until he isn't. Eddie's (unseen) Countess and May's would-be beau Martin interrupt their saga, but only briefly and without leaving any kind of permanent mark.

Todd Rosenthal's scenic design is an exquisite mixture of a completely generic motel room in the middle of some desert nowhere, a space that May has inhabited for who knows how long as she both waits for Eddie's inevitable returns and attempts to move on with her life. The decaying, water-stained acoustic tiles are in conversation with the genteel, old-fashioned bedstead and the pointedly straight-backed kitchenette chairs with their floral-patterned vinyl covers.

Heather Gilbert's lighting meets Rosenthal's set and rises to its challenge. The neon motel sign shifts from hot red to cool blue, and winks out entirely, leaving both the characters and the audience in startling darkness. Gilbert also makes excellent use of the picture window overlooking the undoubtedly seedy parking lot, hitting it with teal and magenta to create something close to an aurora borealis effect.

Raquel Adorno's costumes also come into play to create the necessary dreamscape. May's broomstick skirt with its huge, glitter-centered flowers and crinoline beneath, paired with something akin to a man's undershirt is arresting presentation for the character when she is all but nonverbal, and the contrast with the close-fitting, shirred red dress with fishnets that she dons excavates the character's complexity from Shepard's subtext. As for the men, Eddie's enormous belt buckle speaks volumes, as do the Old Man's huaraches and Martin's carefully neat but mismatched and ill-chosen suit and pants.

Mikhail Fiksel's sound design and original music complement Adorno's costuming, focusing on place rather than time, and cultivating the absurdist ghost-story spirit of May and Eddie's twisted past with bathroom echoes and reverberating door slams.

Caroline Neff (May) and Nick Gehlfuss (Eddie) steer the production, handling the dialogue and subtext deftly, pairing this with equally impressive physical work. Neff is as captivating in playing May's broken-down desperation as she is in the character's roaring, literally ball-busting moments. And for as little as the text gives her to play in terms of interaction with either Martin (Cliff Chamberlain) or the Old Man (Tim Hopper), she is a fierce, insistent presence.

Gehlfuss is maddeningly charming, and when he spins the first story of his relationship with May, he is riveting enough that it is genuinely startling to be pulled out of the tragedy by May's re-entry, when she calls bullshit at the top of her lungs.

Chamberlain is painfully awkward and bewildered (as he must be) as Martin, and it's to the credit of all concerned that, although the character is certainly comic relief, there's nothing cheap or mean in his interactions with either Eddie or May. There's a different kind of charm in Chamberlain's performance that plays well off the swagger of Gehlfuss.

Hopper's Old Man, in some sense, is also a deliberate riff on Eddie, but also on May, despite his claims that he cannot see himself in either of the younger characters. Hopper has his moments of suaveness and compelling storytelling, but he's stiff and broken-down with time and his own actions, whereas Eddie's hypermasculine performance is only just starting to take its toll, and May has had little choice in the things that have worn her down. All told, the ensemble work, as one expects from Steppenwolf, is top notch.

Fool for Love has been extended through March 23, 2025, at Steppenwolf Theatre, Downstairs Theater, 1650 N. Halsted, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit steppenwolf.org or call 312-335-1650.