"The director has rather exploited the realistic side of the play, proving that guilty passions and loves become those demons which are the drivers of violence and irrationality;

The entire show has a fluency, a normality secured by a careful coordination of the cast and the other elements pertaining to the stage, and the fact that the depicted relationships have consummated at high voltages proves that love transcends everything.

Although screaming in the desert of an American province, Fool for Love – a story like a contemporary western – gathers more and more spectators resolute to encounter vivid emotion, (only) the fruit of love".

Madalina Dumitrache, Web Cultura - Love, as a Battle Field without Winners

"A tragedy I recommend with hand on heart: „Fool for Love”, from NTB, is a ravishing play, grave, difficult to perform, only apparently easy to be staged, but convincing. In any case, a feat".

Horia Ghibutiu, Journalist Blog – An American Tragedy „Fool for Love” at NTB

...a show of actors, well moved and placed in an inspired manner in the key points of the drama, configuring the emotional element from aspects of American life atmosphere, with aggressions, empathies and attitudes.

(...) Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, from the Bucharest National Theatre, is a show for full ages, offering the audience an unforgettable evening, and may motivate the spectator from the province to travel to Bucharest in order to witness it”.

Nicolae Havriliuc, Theatre Nowadays, 7-8-9- 2014 – Only Emotions Matter  

„It is difficult to reproach Gavril Pătru with something, whose Eddie remains ambiguous, unqualifiable, mysterious, macho sometimes, tender other times, with brisk transitions from primitive violence to mordant irony.

„The Old Man" impersonated by Mihai Călin is ironically dominant and attempts to reunite the ages which he might have: he alternates attitudes specific to his adult years at the height of power with the ones specific for a truly wise old man. Mihai Călin performs very sparingly, remains motionless for a long time and mostly uses the voice (he delivers a similar remarkable performance in No man’s land).

I left Martin at the end. This character, excellently written by Shepard and wonderfully performed by Ioan Andrei Ionescu, although secondary, becomes the cornerstone of the show. Martin the placid one, whose candour borders on stupidity (recalling of Harold Mitchell from A Tramway Named Desire, the one before awakening to reality) is the mirror in which Eddie and May appear distorted, with mutilated souls. On the other hand, his appearance is the necessary variation, the rhythm break which relaunches the show. Ioan Andrei Ionescu confers to his character an unusual sensitivity and frailty, in stark contrast to the actor’s solid physique. The actor masters perfectly the intonations, gestures, movements, expressions (his lost gaze, his air of profound incomprehension of the irrational complications of the two brothers are unforgettable) – a genuine performance.

Liviu Ornea, Observator Cultural – Fool for Love  

"Why not miss Fool for love? Because you've been in one of the roles on stage at least once. Because your story will seem infinitely simpler for 90 minutes. Because you will go home with the idea of ​​returning to the show, just to watch the old man, more precisely to stalk Mihai Călin and breathe a sigh of relief, making a quick finding of the personal family tree, knowing that the madness of love is perpetuated genetically."

Daria Nedelcu, DissolvedMagazine - Fool forLove, a show about love and its demons   

„The intensity of this show is hard to describe, the characters and the lines make the audience put themselves in May and Eddie's shoes and rethink the situations from their point of view. Or maybe they've already been in their shoes at some point? What is certain is that you will watch the National Theatre's production with bated breath, and you will definitely want to see it again.”

Ilinca Urmuzache, B-critic - "Fool for Love", an American story  

"Fool for Love is not a play. It is a live demonstration of acting, of being loved and hated, of hoping and despairing, of being assaulted and comforted, of laughing and crying. Especially crying.”

Laura Ivăncioiu, noi3.life - Fool for Love  

„Fool for Love is, in fact, a show about love. A crazy, forbidden, immoral love. Really illegal. But why would it be illegal to love? And, more precisely, what is normal love, the one that is not crazy?”

Emil Călinescu, LaTeatru - Fool for Love - NTB  

“It's a show with many meanings, which you have to discover in its entirety. A show that you have to see with both mind and soul to discover its hidden beauty beyond appearances.”

Mădălina Mihai, Cultural21 - Fool for Love. Or… how guilty are guilty loves?   

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu 

Presented within the Days and Nights Theatre Festival of Braila, December 2014

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu