Simple past echoes in complex present

Sam Shepard's Fool for Love is set in the author's typical terrain; a modern American west where echoes of a simpler past resound in a more complex and unmanageable present. His characters, utterly real in themselves, still manage to represent a way of life gone off the rails, in thrall to a new violence of the spirit.

It is set in a seedy motel room rented by May, a young woman in a low-paid job. Enter Eddie, who has come more than 2,000 miles to find her and fetch her back to the trailer they previously shared.

It emerges that they have been lovers for many years, but he keeps disappearing, and she keeps leaving. They are locked into a strange love-hate affair, victims of a star-crossed past.

The ghost of an old man sits in a corner, pleading self-justification for his role in their via dolorosa; he had two women during his lifetime, and a child by each. A jarring twist in the story is that both Eddie and May know their relationship; caught between poles of attraction and repulsion, there is no exit from the cycle they are trapped in.

This Brass-tacks production catches quite beautifully the essential mood of the piece, drawing the audience, for some 80 uninterrupted minutes, into the heart of the complex tensions. Louis Lovett is excellent as the mercurial, unpredictable Eddie, and Alice Barry's May has the right range of reactions to his volatility. Cecil Bell's Old Man is a theatrical device that simply works, and Paul McGlinchey as Martin, May's hapless date who stumbles into a round of revelation, is fine.

Paul Kennedy directs with a clear feeling for the play's psychological content, and Mark Costello's set and lighting designs make good use of the tiny studio stage.

Runs to September 6th; booking at 01-6795720