“Eurydice”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - July 2011

Magic. The theatre is magical in its very honesty and humanity. Sarah Ruhl is a magical writer. I have always loved magical writers, ones whose love of the language is strong and evident. I love John Guare and Tom Stoppard and now I love Sarah Ruhl too. So wild horses couldn’t have kept me from going to the magical tent in the orchard that is PS/21 to see her Eurydice.

I recognized Ruhl’s magic immediately in the first play of hers I saw – the superb WAM Theatre production of Melancholy Play in Pittsfield this past November – and so did David Anderson, the artistic director of Walking the dog Theater, who immediately started reading her works to find a play that would suit his company. His selection of Eurydice was perfect, as are all the choices he and his ensemble cast have made in this remarkable and moving production.

Because of my hectic summer reviewing schedule, the only practical time for me to attend the show as at their very first public preview, so some of what I write about here may be different from what you see, but I have no doubt that what you see will be just as perfect.

Before I tell you about the play and this production, let me tell you about a conversation that occurred at the post-show talk back, (There is a talk back session after every Thursday evening performance.) A particular bit of stage business was under discussion and Anderson and the cast explained that they had never done it that way before, that it had been staged differently and it was just that day that they had decided to go in a new direction.

A woman raised her hand and said: “But what I saw was perfect. Are you telling me that you did it a different way yesterday and you could do it another way tomorrow and it would still be perfect?”

Anderson smiled broadly and said: “Yes.”

And that is what live theatre is all about. People ask me if I go to these “live” HD broadcasts from eminent theatres around the world which are all the rage – I have been and they are very nice but they are films, they are not “live” in any way, and especially in the sense that every audience who sees it sees EXACTLY the same thing. The very essence of live theatre is that it is NEVER the same twice. It is completely ephemeral and moves, as do our lives, in real time, however we perceive it.

The stage business being discussed took a very long time and there was no dialogue during it, only live music being played. It took as long as it took for Ron Komora, the actor playing Eurydice’s father, to unwind and fasten the string that created her room in the Underworld. Anderson and Komora explained that, previously, they had been concerned with fitting the business to the music, or vice versa, and that part of their new innovation was to allow the business to take the time it took. They were curious to hear from the audience how that had worked for them and how they had perceived and experienced the time. All were in agreement that they liked the process and didn’t feel it had gone on for too long. Someone asked what Ruhl’s stage directions for that moment said, and Anderson replied “The father builds Eurydice a room. Time passes.”

While inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Ruhl’s play is a love letter to her father, written shortly after his death. The original tells the story fron Orpheus’ point of view, and there is no father figure.

A quick reminder of the source material: Orpheus is not a god, but a mortal with a divinely inspired gift for music and poetry. He marries Eurydice, but she dies on their wedding day. Orpheus plays such sad music that even the gods weep, and then he travels to the world of the dead, the Underworld, and persuades Hades and Persephone to allow Eurydice to return to the land of the living with him. They agree on the condition that he not look back at her as she follows him out of the Underworld, or he will lose her again. Needless to say, the story does not have a happy ending.

“To die will an awfully big adventure.” – Sir James M. Barrie

Death is the one adventure to which we have no eye-witness accounts. No one comes back and writes it all down, or sings about it, or paints a picture of it. Yet with all that mystery surrounding death, people are very reticent about imaging what it might be like – if it is like anything at all. Here it is important to remember that the ancient Greeks did not believe in a morally divided afterlife with the good guys going to a white and fluffy heaven and the bad guys going to a dark and fiery hell. They believed in one rather gloomy subterranean fate for all known as Erebus and later after its lord, Hades.

Sarah Ruhl is not shy about imagining the next life. And her ideas are radical and intriguing.

To Ruhl the Underworld is indeed a sorrowful place. After being ferried across the river Styx, everyone is dipped in Lethe, the river or pool of oblivion whose waters wipe out all their memories of mortal life. This means that, while you may well be united with the souls of your loved ones, you have no memory of each other or your relationship.

The spokespeople for Ruhl’s Underworld, which is ruled by a very mischievous god, unctuously played by Paul Boothroyd, are a chorus of three Stones – a Big Stone (Nancy Rothman), a Little Stone (Pooja Karina Thomas), and a Loud Stone (Helena Zay). Hellenists may recall that in mythology Orpheus’ music could charm even the stones, but not these Stones! What they want is some peace and quiet, and they don’t get much of that once Eurydice (Rachel Storey) and her father (Komora) are reunited. He has been, from the start, a Subversive – one of the few people in the Underworld who retains the ability to read and write.

When I heard that there was no reading or writing in this place, I understood immediately that Ruhl intended this to be Hell. There could be no worse punishment for a writer than to go to a place like that. Or for a woman who has just lost her father to imagine a place with no fathers.

But, with her Father’s help, Eurydice regains her ability to read and write, and to remember quite a bit of her earthly existence. She revels in the stories he tells her of his childhood, her childhood, their mutual ancestors. Orpheus (Chris Smith) is a distant memory to her until he is able to get a letter to her and starts on his journey to bring her home to him.

But this play is not about Orpheus, it is about a father and a daughter, and what both death and marriage do to that relationship. Anderson writes in his program notes about the effect his father’s death had on him. I will not bore you with my own experience, but my father is the only person whose death I have witnessed. Losing a parent – whether she or he is one with whom you have a strong or a troubled relationship – is an inevitable passage but a life-changing one. Yet I didn’t find here, as I do with The Secret Garden, that this play opened wounds or even moved me to tears. My father has been dead nearly nine years now, and mother for nearly a decade, so perhaps the loss is far enough in the past now for me – you are the best judge of your own emotions – but I would not allow a recent loss in your own life to prevent you from going to experience this remarkable production. Besides, there is no shame in crying over the cruel finality of death that deprives us of the company of those we love.

Walking the dog is not about big sets and big costumes and big name actors, they are about the artistry of the stage and the shared experience between actors, designers, musicians, and audience. The aforementioned “big” things just get in the way of that. But they are not about shabby cut-rate production values either. Katie-Jean Wall has designed costumes that are as playful and creative as Ruhl’s language, and Wendy Frost as built an evocative set, the centerpiece of which is…well, I don’t think I’ll tell you…but it is a splendid sight gag and visual interpretation of the ancient Greek mythology.

The Rosamund Trio – Beth Craig, ‘cello, Miriam Shapiro, violin, and Cindy Ogulnick, viola – play Jonathan Talbot’s original score live just off stage left. Ruhl does include musical cues, but I am not sure she provides music. In any event, Talbot composed this score for this production, and it works beautifully. I am just interested how central the ‘cello seems to be to the work of Ruhl’s that I have seen so far.

If I had been able to ask a question at the talkback (as a member of the American Theatre Critics Association I am not allowed to say or do anything inside the theatre that will affect the production or the audience’s experience) I would have asked lighting designer Bradley Fay how he incorporated the changing time of nightfall into his work. The tent at PS/21 is open at one end, but there is stage lighting, and it must be a delicate dance to bring the right lights up in harmony with both the dwindling length of the days and the weather.

As it was, I enjoyed very much the feeling of darkness falling and enveloping us. We lead such hurried, indoor lives that we rarely get that pleasure. It has to do with allowing the dark and the light the time it takes for them to do their twice daily dance. It is about time passing.

Walking the dog Theater’s production of Eurydice at PS/21, located at 2980 Route 66 in Chatham, NY, will be performed at 8 p.m. on July 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 21-24 and 28-31. The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission and is suitable for ages 10 and up. Tickets are $20 previews (July 7, 9 & 10), $30 adults, $18 ages 14 and, under and $25 for Wtd members. Tickets are available through the PS21 website or at the door ONLY. Call 518.610.0909 for info and Wtd Member Reservations.

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