Relationships: They can make the worst day better and the best day worse. No matter what you think of your life, however, it's got to be better than the convoluted romance of Eddie and May at the epicenter of playwright Sam Shepard's Fool for Love, performed by the Brandeis Players this weekend in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater. While generally successful, the production failed at times to make sense of the confusing script.

The play explains early on that the two former lovers discovered years earlier that they are half-siblings. Still in contact and in love with May years later, Eddie drives 2,000 miles to reach her hotel room in the Mojave Desert as she awaits a romantic rendezvous with a man named Martin.

To make matters worse, the spirit of their father, aptly named The Old Man, sits off to the side of the room observing, and often commenting on, their every move.

Chemistry was evident between all four characters. May (Sarah Jacobs '09) and Eddie (Alex Toplansky '07) made evident their strong connection, even as Jacobs often employed the same angry emotions using repetitive tones and expressions without variation. Toplansky fared better in this regard, utilizing a wealth of facial expressions, body language and tonal variations to express his complex emotional state.

The rivalry between Eddie and Martin (Alex Martynov '08) was also believable, as was the occasional interplay between The Old Man (Tom Heller '07) and his children. The spectral father never ceased to bother the main characters, watching them eerily or holding his mug up for more whiskey as Eddie poured some for May. He also served as comic relief, launching into long stories about his childhood and making slightly satirical comments about May and Eddie. This served to break up a deeply intense dramatic story about emotions-but also added more confusion to an already complex plot.

Emotions reached a fever pitch because of the stressful circumstances and relationships each character underwent. This was evidenced by the set, which had several doors and lights that were constantly slammed closed and thrown open to visualize the emotional ups and downs.

Expert effects by lighting director Erica Weston '07 made the seedy motel room, as well as the increasingly tense conflict, much more realistic. In scenes when cars approached the room, for example, headlights dramatically swept across the windows. In addition, in an effort to hide, characters turned the lights on and off, and the light switch on stage really seemed to control the lighting.

In an interview with the Justice, director Dave Klasko '07 said it was difficult for him to sum up the play's purpose. This may have been partially due to the many plot twists, but also seemed indicative of the play's ambiguities.

Perhaps Fool for Love intentionally leaves interpretation to the viewer-in this case, that might be more readily accomplished through careful study than a one-time viewing.

However, Klasko knew the play was atypical, stating in the program that the title "Fool for Love" is misleading- the show is indeed the exact opposite of the light romantic comedy that its title implies.

Often, it was difficult to discern whether characters were lying or simply telling an incredibly bizarre truth. Ideally, such ambiguities should have inspired the audience to truly think about Fool for Love's message. As the audience left the theater, however, their comments seemed the result of mere confusion.

Unfortunately, despite all of Fool for Love's strengths in acting and special effects, as well as playwright Sam Shepard's critical acclaim, the script itself crammed too much material into too little time.

Running 65 minutes with no intermission, it was clearly designed to be intense, and as such, often eluded its audience's attention spans.