EYES FOR CONSUELA Sam Shepard's adaptation of a short story, "The Blue Bouquet," by Octavio Paz, about an American traveler ( David Strathairn) who encounters a bandit (Daniel Faraldo) in the Mexican jungle. Directed by Terry Kinney. With. Manhattan Theater Club, Stage II, City Center, 131 W. 55th St. (581-1212) .Performances begin 2/03/98-4/12/98; opened 2/09.

Sam Shepard's back on stage. This time instead of mounting the western cowboy's horse to spin out his drama he's followed the trend toward adaptation. His muse the Nobel Prize winning poet Octavio Paz, specifically a short story "The Blue Bouquet" (which preceeded his 1990 Nobel award by some forty years). Like much of Shephard's work it brings together two pyschologically opposed types -- an ordinary (or seemingly so) man and an on-the-edge, out of control type. The results are according to most critics, (NewYork Times, Newsday, AP), including CurtainUp subscriber Wendy Springer not particularly satisfying or entertaining. Here's Wendy's mini review:

What happens is this: Henry played by David Strahearn has come to a Mexican pueblo to find self-knowledge and a vacation after his wife of many years has left him. He is staying in an isolated inn and takes a stroll after waking up in a sweat. Enter Amado ( Daniel Faraldo) a peasant with a machete, who tries to steal his eyes because his `` woooman (Tanya Gingerich)" wants what God fails to bestow on Mexicans, "a bouquet of blue eyes''. As a Shepard fan I recognized the mix of fantasy, fable and unfathomable phenomena that are his hallmarks. Sad to say, it all comes off as feeble replay of his more robust work. The character of the bandit Amado is more an auteur device than a real human being. Even David Strahearn whose acting I admire couldn't make me feel much empathy for Henry and the end came more as a relief that it was over than as a surprise. The best thing about the play was Santo Loquasto's jungle of a set. If I hadn't seen and loved another play, the musical Violet ( our review) which started as a short story (ed note: "The Lone Pilgrim" by Doris Betts) I'd say short stories do not good plays make. That leads me to conclude that it's not the short story is incompatible with drama but but that this particular short story did not work for Sam Shepard."

Speaking of "lone pilgrims" the lone critical pilgrim among those who tended to agree with Wendy, was Fintan O'Toole of The Daily News. O'Toole rated this as "not to be missed". and stated that the story is mere springboard from which Shepard "takes us into a feverish sweat-soaked atmosphere where the borders between past and present, the physical and the imagined, dissolve." O'Toole admitted that in lesser hands, the play could easily be a ridiculous collision of cliches, but hastend to add that "Shepard's mastery is such that these crude stereotypes are scarcely noticeable. The writing has the kind of apparently effortless boldness that reminds you that you are in the presence of one of the greatest living playwrights." O'Toole rated Stathairn's performance as "superb" and Daniel Faraldo, as his Mexican nemesis "forceful" and "fluent." In answer to those who found the play too unbelievable he wrote: "The truth is that Shepard really achieves what so many obscure writers merely claim to have done. He draws you into a logic of his own so that you stop worrying about what does or doesn't make sense. He gives meaning to that hackneyed phrase "the suspension of disbelief." "

Since Wendy Springer didn't seem to find the end all that surpriing, perhaps the fact that O'Toole revealed whether Henry loses his eyes -- (Ed. Note: we won't do so here) -- won't spoil things for those prompted to rush to the box office to see whether they share his vision about this play.