Read Columbia College student reviews of Eurydice

Columbia College Chicago professor Mara Tapp brought students in her Reviewing the Arts class to one of the final previews of Eurydice.  We already know what the major reviewers had to say about about our critically acclaimed revival of Sarah Ruhl’s bold take on the Orpheus myth.  Following are a few samples of Ms. Tapp's students' unedited reviews, which shed light on how today’s culturally-connected younger audiences are reacting to the show:

 

By Dan Riordan

It will be raining quite a bit inside Victory Gardens Theater for the next month or so, and it’s worth stepping inside to see this odd occurrence.  It isn’t due to faulty plumbing or poor renovation, but is a part of Victory Gardens latest production, Eurydice.

This odd little play was written by Sarah Ruhl, a talented playwright and winner of the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House.  That same play also made Ms. Ruhl a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2005.  Needless to say Eurydice gives any director much to work with.  It is a quirky play, but it does not rely purely on novelty.  Beneath its strangeness there is a rich core that finds its tradition in one of the most ancient of expressions; that of the myth.      

Eurydice is a modern take on the Greek myth of Orpheus.  Orpheus plays the most beautiful music in all of Greece.  He falls in love with a woman named Eurydice who happens to die on their wedding day from a snake bite.  Orpheus descends to Hades to retrieve Eurydice.  He does so by playing the most beautiful music that moves everyone and everything in Hades, including stones, to tears.  Upon hearing the music the lord of the underworld agrees to allow Eurydice to leave with Orpheus: under one condition; Orpheus must not look back.  He is to trust that Eurydice is following him out, but, of course, he looks back and loses her forever. 

It seems like standard Greek fare but Ruhl naturally draws out what is essential and revelatory about this myth and fuses it with what is immediate and essential about our existence today.  It is done so subtly that one can miss the most prescient aspects of the play without being aware. 

Daniel Ostling does a superb job as set designer.  The stage is sparse, but not empty; only what is essential appears and the result is an intelligent minimalism.  The stage is rather elemental in the sense that we see sand, sky, stone, and water.  These very Greek elements are juxtaposed with our character’s world, one that is set in the fifties.  The color palette is well-chosen.  Though there are bright, deeply saturated colors, what is most memorable are the muted tones of the underworld.  There is also the strong use of water.  There is water everywhere in this production and most memorably in the elevator.  Yes, there is a raining elevator.  The production would be worth seeing purely for its novelty, but thankfully that isn’t the only thing worth seeing.     

Lee Stark gives a strong performance as Eurydice alongside Joe D. Lauck, who deftly plays her father.  Lauck’s performance is moving and one has the sense that he put much of himself into his role.  Jamie Abelson plays the part of Orpheus and also gives a strong performance, though one is left desiring more outrage, more passion, when Orpheus loses Eurydice.  Beau O’Reilly gives a truly memorable performance as “nasty interesting man”, also known as Lord of the Underworld.  It is difficult to look away when he is on stage, though at times you may feel yourself wanting to.  He is effectively comical and chilling at the same time. 

The profundity of Eurydice lies in the juxtaposition and union of the ancient and modern.  The novel world of the fifties exists on top of the very ancient world of the elements, all while our characters deal with the age old existential questions of death.   One of the more remarkable and revelatory experiences of this play comes from seeing the common thread of existential angst we feel when faced with the reality of death. 

This production of Eurydice is both myth and contemporary play.  For a culture that seems divorced from history, Eurydice is a reminder that we have not gone very far.  In fact we have gone nowhere at all, we still remain on this very old Earth and the questions and desires that surround death still confound and disturb us.  But still, we would like to believe that death can be conquered, that we can reconnect with those who have left us, and that love is strong enough to accomplish all of this.  Eurydice manages to make us feel, to make us feel on a very primal level the way myths are supposed to.   Consequently we are moved in a profound manner. 

 

 

By Mike Devlin

                Eurydice is the classic Greek allegory of Eurydice and her husband Orpheus.  After she is bitten by a snake and descends into the underworld, Orpheus is compelled by love to journey down to Hades and retrieve her, using the beauty of his music to enter the underworld as a mortal.  In Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation, the story focuses more on the relationship between Eurydice and her deceased father, who she sees again for the first time in years on her expedition  Dealing with the passing of her own father during the writing process, Ruhl creates a tender connection between the two with a very personal sentiment that produces the best scenes throughout the play. 

                Adding to the warmth between the daughter and father is the terrific acting of Joe Lauck.  His presence is gentle and affectionate, that of the ultimate father figure.  Every line he delivers is comforting and genuine.  It plays nicely with Eurydice’s character, played by Lee Stark, who has a childish bewilderment about her.  While this is a nice compliment to Lauck’s paternal poise in their scenes together, at times it feels too saccharin, particularly in her relationship with Orpheus.  Eurydice as a daughter is the essential role to the theme of the love between her and her father. However, Eurydice as a wife and lover is the drive of the plot, which loses significance in Stark’s juvenile performance.    

                The rest of the cast is stellar.  I particularly enjoyed the chorus of the three stones, who serve as a kind of metatheatrical narrator within the story.  The group of three, played by Cheryl Lynn Bruce, William Norris and Caitlin Hart, are an entertaining source of comic relief.  The timing of their harmonic lines was nearly flawless, a task not easy to complete.  I also enjoyed the character of the Nasty Interesting Man, played by Beau O’Reilly.  His sinister calm channeled the classic deceit of the lord of the underworld.  His elegance and style in the early scenes while misleading Eurydice into Hades give him a likeability that you wouldn’t expect to find in the devil incarnate. 

                 Mr. Interesting’s dress in these scenes has a specific charm.  Adorned in a light brown suit, accessorized by a cane, ascot and oversized lollipop, he offers a dubious trustworthiness that you’d expect from an upper-class con artist.  Yet things take a strange turn after the setting moves to the underworld.  Here he is clad as a child, wearing a beanie and riding a tricycle.  It is an odd choice that gives the character a distracting lack of authority while playing such a dominant role. 

                Many of the costumes are very simple, nothing more than suits and t-shirts.  This complements the simplicity of the set design which is little more than four walls and a bathtub.  The idea was for the lack of ornamentation to enhance the performance and direct to eye line of the audience to the actors.  While I understand the notion of not wanting to distract people with an elaborate scenery, this was nearly a bare stage that didn’t create any sort of alternate world for the viewer to place themselves in.  The simplicity did however provide for one nice element.  When Eurydice is told that there are no rooms in Hades, a concept that is very isolating and frightening, her father builds her one out of balloons and string.  The image is beautiful in its soft simplicity. 

                The set décor may be minimal, although there is a feeling of personality to the setting.  The lighting is also simple, yet effective.  It may even be aided by the cleanness of the four plain white walls.  It provides a blank canvas for large, ominous shadows as the Nasty Interesting Man tries to lure Eurydice into Hades with the promise of a letter from her father on her wedding day.  As her father sends that letter to the mortal world on a balloon, a single spotlight shines down on him.  It highlights both his pride and sadness as he watches his daughter marry from the beyond. 

                A central theme in the original Greek myth in the beauty of Orpheus’ music and how grants him access to the underworld by bringing the guardians of the gate to tears.  Andre Pluess does that theme justice with his graceful sound design.  The majority of the play is scored by an array of flowing violins and piano.  But Pluess is also able to effectively stray from that gentility as he uses jarring heavy metal to announce the entrance of the Nasty Interesting Man, the lord of the underworld.

                On the whole, I enjoyed this performance.  Lauck and O’Reilly’s performances are worth the price of admission alone.  Even though the subject matter may be too grown-up in content, the play has a fairy-tale spirit that children might enjoy.  Eurydice is playing at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater through November 9^th. 

 

 

Raining elevator. Weeping loss.

By Jonathan Drexler

 

               Sarah Ruhl’s surrealistic new play “Eurydice,” directed by Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus and now at Victory Gardens Theater, is full of memories. Old and new. Happy and sad. And ones perhaps best left behind.

In just over an hour and a half, we experience the rise and fall and eventual demise of young lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice. From engagement to marriage to having their wedding reception woefully interrupted by a rain-drenched elevator ride straight to Hades, spurred on by none other than “Satan” himself, Ruhl takes measured steps to dig deeply into one of life’s most haunting truisms: that a life lived in the past is really no life at all.

Eurydice is lured from her wedding party by the devil, appropriately named Nasty Interesting Man, who claims to possess a compelling letter from her recently deceased father. The young bride can’t help but be tempted by this man, and by memories of her father, and so she follows him to the underworld. Later, when young Orpheus attempts to retrieve her, he looks back and causes Eurydice’s permanent banishment to the underworld.

An unexpected widower, Orpheus is understandably distraught. During a heavy rainstorm one night, while composing music in his wife’s memory, he devises a way to ride the “perfect note” into the depths of Hades so as to be reunited with his love. The genius that is his music is so haunting and sad that even The Stones, a Greek chorus of the underworld, wail with sorrow.

The Stones, who know the implications of looking back, are embodied in three elderly cranks, convincingly portrayed by Cheryl Lynn Bruce, William J Norris and Caitlin Hart. The three sit in chairs, side by side, leaning in on their knees or canes, and giving asides to the audience regarding the underworld. They nag Eurydice to “remember not to feel.” They implore, “What’s wrong with sitting and being quiet?” After all, it is “hard work to be a stone,” they remind the dead bride.  

Forgetting Orpheus is surprisingly easy for Eurydice, who, after having gone through the River of Hades, can’t even recognize her own father. But he is there, waiting for her in the underworld. To the chagrin of The Stones, Eurydice learns how to speak in the language of the dead and thus reconnects with her father. This sets the stage for the tough choice Eurydice will have to make between her husband and the man who raised her.

In loosening the structure of the Greek myth, Ruhl’s Eurydice can’t help but call out Orpheus’ name as they leave. He looks back, and in doing so, forever banishes his wife to Hades. Or, perhaps more in line with the message of the myth and Ruhl’s telling of it, he banishes Eurydice to a life of remembering—a life of living in the past—and therefore disallows her a true connection with the present and future.

Actors Jamie Abelson and Lee Stark give rich performances as Orpheus and Eurydice, balancing intense interactions with dance like movements. Their body language as young lovers created a pathos with the audience from the opening scenes. During Orpheus’ journey to hell, Abelson contorts himself at the top of a ladder and then later freezes in a semi-headstand, falling to hell as the scene closes.

Joe D. Lauck gives a nuanced performance as Eurydice’s father, exposing the softer, subtler movements of a father’s abiding love for his daughter.

In line with the emotion and surrealism of the piece, Daniel Ostling’s classical Greek stage design creates a dreamlike foundation on which the performances can unfold. In one scene Eurydice requests a room, to which the Stones reply, “there are no such things as rooms here,” as her father rolls a nitrous tank on stage and constructs a “room” for his daughter made of eight pieces of string attached to four floating pink balloons. In another, a rolling boardwalk and sky-painted canvas serve as the beach. Well-defined shadows and tall, bare walls represent the underworld. A raining elevator, in which Eurydice arrives in Hades, is the most complex of these impressive props. The image of Eurydice descending, with an open umbrella, in an elevator that’s raining on her, is that much more striking against the backdrop of this simple set.

The intimacy of the acting and stage presentation is justly accompanied by the sound design of Andre Pluess, whose reverberated drips, eerie splashes, booming violin, and piano attacks practically became another character in the telling of Eurydice’s story.

Overall, Ruhl gives an exciting take on this age-old tale. It rings true. And just as she takes on the grand musings of life’s elations and regrets, new love and inevitable death, Ruhl grounds the telling in the everyday. She takes us on a journey both familiar and new.

 

 

Eurydice's Second Death

By

Devan McGrathRiecke

Playwright Sarah Ruhl has seen an emergence over the last several years. Best known for her pulitzer-finalist play "The Clean House," her works have seen a multitude of stagings across the country, often to critical acclaim. The latest is Victory Gardens Theater's production of "Eurydice," Ruhl's interpretation of the classic Greek myth.

 

Ruhl sticks firmly to the foundations of the original story: Eurydice and the musician Orpheus are freshly married when Eurydice tumbles into the depths of the underworld. Orpheus journeys underground to retrieve her, softens the guards at the gates with his beautiful music, and is allowed entrance to fetch his bride. Under no circumstances should he look back at Eurydice as she follows him to the surface, else she'll be gone forever. Spoiler Alert! He looks back, sending dear Eurydice through second death and gone forever.

 

Ruhl transposes the lovers into a vaguely 20th-century universe and throws several new characters into the mix. Most notable is Eurydice's deceased father, who watches his daughter's wedding from the afterlife, and later becomes her mentor following her descent. The focus is significantly shifted from the original tale—Orpheus' rescue mission takes a backseat to the father/daughter relationship. The bulk of the play presents Eurydice in the afterlife as her father helps her reconstruct her memory, which had been erased upon her death. The laws of the afterlife are clearly spelled out for both Eurydice and the audience by a trio of elderly, cranky gatekeepers known as the Stones (no relation to Mick and Keith).

 

Sarah Ruhl has bitten off quite a bit here. This play attempts to examine the complexities of death and loss, family versus lover, music versus language, loving an artist, and marriage—to name a few. It deals in abstract metaphors and symbolism. And it doesn't quite come together.

 

The script contains powerful ideas and thoughtful, clever lines—"It's weird for a dead person to be morbid" quips one character. However, it moves clumsily through different moods, as if Ruhl wrote a promising first draft and then gave up. "Eurydice" sets its focus so broadly that it fails to give depth to the concepts it grazes, and the final product feels scattered. Many of the script's attempts at humor verge on the saccharine. A scene in which Eurydice struggles to re-learn everything that's been washed from her memory offers no new twist or insight into a clichéd bit. Her wide-eyed naivete and "what is a book and what could it possibly be for?" act would feel more at home in a Disney film than a play about mortality, and was in fact done more convincingly in "The Little Mermaid."

 

There's nothing wrong with a show that chooses not to take itself too seriously, but "Eurydice" can't decide whether to present its mythology or to mock it. A character jokes that Eurydice sure is an anachronistic name. Wink, wink.

 

Ruhl often turns ironically to the audience as if to say "Get it? Isn't this clever?" And in turning around to make sure the audience is still with her — well, we know how that works out.

 

If the Greek classics tend toward the melodramatic, Ruhl's work camps out on the other end of the spectrum, playing out with a sense of curiosity that keeps emotional resonance at arms length. Although "Eurydice" literally deals with life and death, the stakes never feel very high. Somehow a show about plummeting into the afterlife lacks gravity. This is due in part to actors Jamie Abelson and Lee Stark as Orpheus and Eurydice respectively. Both performances are solid and charming, but tend toward a formalist style, which keeps the pathos from pervading on a deeper level.

 

Directors Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus draw out the strongest elements of the script. Its abstract, symbolic nature lends itself to powerful visuals. The production design keeps itself quiet and minimal. A sandbox, boardwalk, and abstract scrim create an elegant beach scene, which then gives way to an elaborately blank stage for the remainder of the show, highlighting instead a sparse set pieces. The way Orpheus utilizes ladders throughout his communications with the underworld is particularly inspired. The way in which letters float up from the underworld on balloons is touching in its simplicity, and the use of water on stage is moving.

 

A show this abstract works best when it hits the audience on a visceral level; "Eurydice" almost gets there a few times, aided largely by Andre Pluess' heartbreaking sound design. As Orpheus sings for the Stones the score takes over, melting the normally stoic trio into fits of primal sobbing.

 

It is, unfortunately, also the first and only time the audience is treated to anything so moving. It reminds us that a play examining loss, nostalgia, and memory through symbols and mythology has far more potential for impact than "Eurydice" is able to capitalize on.