‘Falls for Jodie’ – A Stalker in Love and Pain

By Alix Cohen

John Benjamin Hinckley became obsessed with Jodie Foster when he saw the 12 year-old in Taxi Driver– a reported 15 times. He was 21. Hinckley developed a pathological identification with the film’s Travis Bickle, creating a template for his own life: The character was compulsively focused on a young woman and ultimately attempted to assassinate a presidential candidate.

By 1979–80, when Foster was a Yale freshman, the stalker was 24–25, she 17. He began sending the actress letters and poems, making telephone calls, and traveling to New Haven to meet her.(There was more than one trip.)

We meet Hinckley (Boone Summers) in 1981, checking in to Sheraton Park Plaza, New Haven. To “concierge” Eddie (Harry Thornton), he’s a prime patsy. We can almost see the hotel employee salivate. Eddie volunteers to get the new guest anything from drugs to sex partners.

At first unresponsive, Hinckley absently stares out a window, presumably towards campus. Eddie assumes he’s fixated on a woman at Yale and volunteers to help get him inside. We next see Eddie rifling through his victim’s things. In short shrift, he guesses the guest’s declared “girlfriend” is Jodie Foster.

“These blue bloods are not like you and me. Their days are numbered and I’ll tell you why, Ronald Wilson Regan is about to be elected,” Eddie proclaims. The easiest mark is the man who thinks you’re one of him. President Trump’s methodology is a prime example.

Hinckley leaves/left Foster notes at her dormitory, among them: “I love you six trillion times. DON’T YOU MAYBE LIKE ME A LITTLE BIT?” and “Jodie Foster, Love. Just wait. I’ll rescue you very soon. Please cooperate.” (In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle imagines himself rescuing Iris.) Both are actual texts.

Meanwhile, Eddie comes up with a scam in which he’ll partner with Hinckley who has family money – the Hinckleys were, in fact, well off. The mark is suspicious but prioritizes convincing his parents he’s the legitimate owner of a business even if he isn’t. There’s push/pull between the protagonists.

Eddie quits his job and puts on a suit. One day, he runs into Joan, an old girlfriend, now Yalie. She invites him to a fundraiser. Joan is a Democrat. His political allegiance conveniently switches. According to the con, the men now have more in common. Eddie points this out. Hinckley, however, is out of money and losing the limited check he had on reality.

Four months later John Benjamin Hinckley tried to assassinate President Regan, additionally wounding four people with bullets from a Röhm RG-14 .22-caliber revolver. He was tackled and arrested at the scene.The perpetrator told police he wanted to impress Jodie Foster.

In Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins, Hinckley sings:
“My dearest Jodie,/I am humiliated by my weakness and my impotence/But Jodie, I can change/I’ll prove to you that I can change/With one brave historic act, I will win your love, now and for all eternity…”

The two-hander by Eric Micha Holmes is feasible even when fictionalized. As a fisheye glimpse into behavior of an “erotomanic attachment,” it works. The phenomena is intriguing. Hinckley is less a conventional predator than a lonely fantasist who gradually turned identification into action. There are, however, holes in description of business operations and its eventual abandonment.

Harry Thornton has the better drawn role as Eddie. Personification is creepy from the get-go. The actor plays a small town operator’s arc naturalistically and well. Boone Summers’ Hinckley offers no indication of penchant for violence except gleeful handling of pawn shop guns. This may be accurate, but it’s less dramatic than that which would add spark to the play.

Director Terrence I Mosley understates the situation. Brief scenes are kept fluid. Chemistry is top notch.
Some singular slips occur at this preview: Unpacking a paper bag of Chinese take-out reveals every carton already open. Hinckley’s check from home is attached to the curtain for safe keeping, but never comes down despite depletion of funds.

Costumes (Rodri Hernandez Martinez) are period and character corny/apt.
Projection Design by Gavin Strawnato is excellent, though it’s unclear what it’s meant to signify.
Tim Zay’s Fight Choreography is terrific.

Photos by Cason Doyle

Falls for Jodie by Eric Micha Holmes
Directed by Terrence I Mosley
The Tank 312 West 36th Street
Through October 18, 2026