Neil Sheppeck, director of Desire and Destruction Season at the Riverside Studios, explains his reasons for casting Sadie Frost and musician Carl Barat (of the Libertines) in Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love: ‘The raw magnetic energy of these two performers – their celebrity status bringing an epic quality and their close friendship having a raw domestic quality – is perfect for Shepard’s tragedy.’ Oh dear. Rarely have reason and result been so far removed from each other: Frost and Barat might bring a little stardust to this Shepard play but their woeful lack of energy, power and presence make for a peculiarly limp show, which does scant justice to Shepard’s blazing play of passion.

The play is essentially a two-hander (with a couple of supporting roles) and its success depends absolutely on the casting of central characters Eddie (Barat) and May (Frost). The two are trapped in an impossible but grindingly addictive relationship; two half siblings, who discovered their familial ties too late and have spent the majority of their adult-lives circling guiltily, excitedly, fearfully around each other.

The synopsis actually sounds a little crass, and, without urgent and dangerous performances, this play suffers significantly. Without magnetic and believable, near heart-breaking central turns, there isn’t an awful lot left to explore: this is all about unstoppable emotions but, if the actors fail to generate any real passion, then Fool For Love loses its focus and drive. With such an empty core, the audience is left feeling curiously unsatisfied at the close: was that really it?

Perhaps aware of the potential pitfalls of his performers, Sheppeck has directed the hell out of them. It isn’t imaginative direction. Instead, Sheppeck has choreographed his actors’ every move – no doubt hoping that these props and movements will help generate what his actors cannot. So, every burst of passion and fiery confrontation is accompanied by an action: at one point, Frost gets particularly ‘enraged’ and hits Barat limply with a belt. Even aided by this prop, she fails to make any real contact and comes across more as a stroppy teenager than a complicated, embittered and near worn-out woman.

Frost is curiously empty. This isn’t a part one can hold back on and one would’ve thought even struggling actors could generate some sort of wild, desperate emotion. What this role requires is complete abandon – for the actress to release the basest and strongest feelings simmering inside us all – yet Frost doesn’t let rip even when she’s screaming. And she screams a lot. There’s not an ounce of passion or recklessness in them – she sounds like she could be asking her half-brother lover to pop out and buy some milk – and these vapid screams chip away at the play, draining it of any spontaneity or spark.

Thankfully, there are few extended sections in this play – the two spend most of the time barking at each other, wrestling and sparring - but Frost’s one extended monologue is a revealing affair. It is a loose, rambling and un-engaging display - one that suggests an actress with little feel for the natural ebbs and flows of dramatic speech – and one can’t help feel for the legions of struggling actresses who have been overlooked in favour of this ‘star’ name.

Struggling male actors have equal reason to feel indignant, since Barat, who one would expect to have some stage presence following his stint in the Libertines, fades in and out on stage. There are moments where one senses a sensitive reader – an actor who might be able to access some poetry in a speech – but overall, he is utterly wrong for the role. Instead of pulsing manliness, we get an indie lad in skinny jeans. Instead of arrogance and a certain swagger, we get softness and restraint. And instead of storming and unstoppable passion, we get vague affection and half smiles. Indeed, both of these roles are such ‘types’ – so easy to visualise and vocalise – that it makes this absolute miscasting all the harder to fathom.

This type of cynical casting will no doubt bring in far more spectators than the Riverside Studios normally boasts – it is just a shame that, on the basis of this sagging and half-hearted production, the audience probably won’t be coming back.

Till 21 March 2010