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Review of Eurydice
Mar. 25th, 2011 02:02 pm"Eurydicey," a play by Sarah Ruhl (Samuel French, 2008)
A retelling of the Eurydice myth from Eurydice's point of view, this version presents Eurydice as someone who is more than just Orpheus's dead wife who serves as the instigating element for his adventure to the underworld.
Sarah Ruhl is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard in her ability to create characters who can be funny, petulant, witty, weird, scared, clueless, confused, and compassionate--namely, fully human--within the small interval of time measured by a play's length, and yet remain completely believable.
This retelling reminds us that Eurydice was young, a teenage girl who was just beginning to find out who she was, and just beginning to wish to be something other than Orpheus's girlfriend, when her life was cut short by the whim of a god. Finding herself in the underworld and once more with only the vaguest sense of who she had been, Eurydice must recreate herself despite the mockery and the seeming senselessness she finds in her new world and, just as she appears to have created a life for herself and her father, Orpheus shows up to bring her back to her previous daylife life as his wife. Eurydice's conflicting desires result in what may be a tragedy, or may merely be the myth of the eternal return.
In many ways, this is not a complex play. It is brief, to be performed without intermission; it has only a handful of characters; it has almost no props beyond an imaginatively used ball of twine (a clew, perhaps?) and a few sound effects.
Yet, in other ways, this is a fascinating puzzle of a play which concerns itself with that most puzzling of questions, who am I?, a question which is perhaps, even more confusing for young women who are so often pressured to see themselves as the girlfriend of some significant male, be it the local football hero or an international rock star. Ironically, it is the twilight world of the dead which provides Eurydice with the tools she needs to discover herself, although those tools seem to be nothing more than a ball of twine, a book containing the complete works of Shakespeare, and the space within which she can be herself.
Eurydice will be produced here in Boston by the
Independent Drama Society
April 22-30
The Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
more info at
http://sites.google.com/site/independentdrama/
A retelling of the Eurydice myth from Eurydice's point of view, this version presents Eurydice as someone who is more than just Orpheus's dead wife who serves as the instigating element for his adventure to the underworld.
Sarah Ruhl is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard in her ability to create characters who can be funny, petulant, witty, weird, scared, clueless, confused, and compassionate--namely, fully human--within the small interval of time measured by a play's length, and yet remain completely believable.
This retelling reminds us that Eurydice was young, a teenage girl who was just beginning to find out who she was, and just beginning to wish to be something other than Orpheus's girlfriend, when her life was cut short by the whim of a god. Finding herself in the underworld and once more with only the vaguest sense of who she had been, Eurydice must recreate herself despite the mockery and the seeming senselessness she finds in her new world and, just as she appears to have created a life for herself and her father, Orpheus shows up to bring her back to her previous daylife life as his wife. Eurydice's conflicting desires result in what may be a tragedy, or may merely be the myth of the eternal return.
In many ways, this is not a complex play. It is brief, to be performed without intermission; it has only a handful of characters; it has almost no props beyond an imaginatively used ball of twine (a clew, perhaps?) and a few sound effects.
Yet, in other ways, this is a fascinating puzzle of a play which concerns itself with that most puzzling of questions, who am I?, a question which is perhaps, even more confusing for young women who are so often pressured to see themselves as the girlfriend of some significant male, be it the local football hero or an international rock star. Ironically, it is the twilight world of the dead which provides Eurydice with the tools she needs to discover herself, although those tools seem to be nothing more than a ball of twine, a book containing the complete works of Shakespeare, and the space within which she can be herself.
Eurydice will be produced here in Boston by the
Independent Drama Society
April 22-30
The Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
more info at
http://sites.google.com/site/independentdrama/
