SOURCE: A review of Fool for Love, in Theatre Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1, March, 1984, pp. 100-01.

In the following review of the San Francisco premiere of Fool for Love in 1983, Derose emphasizes the strength of Shepard's direction and finds that the play, while employing elements of realism, also contains ";dreamlike"; components that are reminiscent of Shepard's earlier work

The premiere of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco serves to dispel the myth that Shepard's work has turned irrevocably toward realism. Yet this premiere production, directed by the author, fuels another myth: that of Shepard's condemned American West. A violent, Western-American family, of the same breed as Shepard's accursed ";starving class,"; is once again at the center of this play. But unlike his other recent plays, Fool for Love is a return to the more self-consciously theatrical and dreamlike stage imagery of Shepard's earlier...