The play is part of a quintet which includes Shepard's Family Trilogy: Curse of the Starving Class (1977), Buried Child (1979), and True West (1980).
The two became lovers in their high school years and when their parents finally figured out what had occurred, Eddie's mother shot herself.
May is afraid that Eddie has begun to emulate his father; taking to drinking and secretly seeing a woman May refers to as the Countess.
Sean Murray, the artistic director of Cygnet Theatre, San Diego, spoke of True West and Fool for Love, which he presented in repertory in 2014: “There’s a definite crisis of identity going on in both these plays... And it’s as if both sets of [main characters] are doomed to be together...
'"[2] Nelson Pressley, reviewing a regional production in The Washington Post, referred to the play as having a "vintage Sam Shepard desperation-at-the-edge-of-the-desert look" with a "twisted cowboy romance.
But as with Sam Shepard plays, the words escalate into explosive action, the actors tearing at each other like mortal enemies.
"[4] In another analysis of the Williamstown production, Elyse Sommer notes: "Like all of Shepard's best plays, despite the evocative Mojave Desert outside the motel room in which it plays out, the landscape here is of the emotions that contain states of mind inside the self... Eddie and May have no tragic flaw or fateful quest but are just caught up in sorting through the emotional tumult of their lives in a power struggle where identity is vague and the past haunts the present.
"[5] The original production, directed by Shepard, opened at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco on February 8, 1983 and starred Ed Harris and Kathy Baker.
[10] The play was revived again at Riverside Studios in London in 2010, with Carl Barât and Sadie Frost in the lead roles.