Eurydice
ACT, 2008
Written by Sarah Ruhl
Scenery by Matthew Smucker
Costumes by Melanie Taylor Burgess
Lighting by Michael Wellborn
Sound by Chris Walker
Under Allison Narver’s luminous direction at ACT Theatre, [Eurydice] can best be received as a kind of deeply stirring tone poem — an imagistic, compelling 90 minutes of metaphysical wandering through a perplexing yet profound dream.
“Eurydice” holds the spell it starts casting in its first scene. It is a brave play that asks us to gaze deep into the nature of death, and our own reluctance to accept it. And it is a loving one that leaves us so grateful for life.
What does it mean to die? What will we miss, and who will mourn our passing when we’re gone? What existence awaits us on the other side? What would we do if given a chance to climb from the tomb and take up our lives again? Worthwhile questions all, asked with style and a languid grace by director Allison Narver in her rendering of the classic Greek tragedy.
In this retelling by New York playwright Sarah Ruhl (The Clean House), the emphasis rests squarely on Eurydice, the star-crossed wife of Orpheus, rather than on her grieving husband who journeys to the underworld to plead for her return through music melancholy enough to make stones weep. It’s as much meditation as play, with Narver making the most of her cast and set designer Matthew Smucker’s eerie end-of-summer dreamscape.
Narver leavens the tragedy with humor and absurdity wherever possible. Her direction creates an entrancing undertow that ebbs and flows like a fevered reverie. Ensemble is critical in sustaining such a mood, and here the performers are uniformly and blessedly in sync. Renata Friedman—who appeared just weeks ago in the one-woman play The K of D—creates a Eurydice who hits just the right notes of terror and wonder opposite Trick Danneker’s lovesick preppy Orpheus. Mark Chamberlindigs deep into the inner conflict of Eurydice’s dead father, who first comforts his daughter in the underworld, then agonizes over relinquishing her to the living world.
While Eurydice expends most of its 90 minutes grappling with death and inconsolability, it’s never maudlin or mawkish. There’s a zippy rendition of the Andrews Sisters’ “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)” by the newlyweds; a gilded art-deco elevator is brought into play; and the ingenious sound design (concocted by Chris Walker) transforms the abandoned swimming pool into a Stygian catacomb with the pluck of a few lyre strings. There’s even some clever business for the Greek chorus of stones who chide each new arrival to accept death and eternal silence. Is their greasepaint meant to suggest kabuki? Is one of them lampooning Tallulah Bankhead? Is another suggesting Humpty Dumpty? No matter. It’s captivating.
