Theatre Thursdays: Eurydice (September 27th, 2018)

In honor of that spooky month being right around the corner (unless you're me and every month is spooky month), let's talk about the dead. Ah yes, theatre is definitely known for being over the top and melodramatic, especially with the dead, but what if we take that idea to a completely different level. This week on Theatre Thursdays, in honor of both spooky month and Theatre Season™ starting up next week, we're gonna take a look at the zany Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice.

Eurydice, like many other plays, is a take on a Greek story. The Greek story is about Orpheus, who loses his wife (Eurydice) to the Underworld and goes to retrieve her because he loves her SO MuCh. Hades, being the God that he is, tells him he can have her back if, when ascending back to Earth, he does not look at her even once. This almost works until Orpheus gets real anxious and decides that he really wants to see his girl, thus losing her forever to the Underworld. Men, amiright?

But Ruhl's take on the classic tale comes from the perspective of Eurydice herself, who gets tricked into going to the Underworld and can't quite remember anything about herself or where she is. The play mixes modern elements with classic ones, including an elevator that descends the characters into the Underworld, three very eccentric stones, and a whole theme involving water and washing away memories. It's kind of sad, but also a little bit heartwarming. Ruhl even creates a completely different ending from the original tale that I like much better. But you'd have to read it to find out. ;)

If you want to read Eurydice - or any of Sarah Ruhl's works -you can find it in the library circulating on the third floor. And be sure to grab tickets for Dead Man's Cell Phone, a drama/comedy by Sarah Ruhl, at the McGaw Theatre on October 4th, 5th, and 6th (directed by a Berea College student!)

Tune in next Thursday night for another fun theatre read!

The Clean House and Other Plays by Sarah Ruhl

Call Number: 822.92 R933c 2006

Publication Date: 2006-01-01

"Passionate. Show-stopping. Daringly over-the-top and impressively consistent in its delirious excess. The Clean House shines."--New Haven Advocate   "The Clean House is not, by any means, a traditional boy-meets-girl story. In fact disease, death, and dirt are among the subjects it addresses. This comedy is romantic, deeply so, but in the more arcane sense of the word: visionary, tinged with fantasy, extravagant in feeling, maybe a little nuts."--The New York Times   "Touching, inventive, invigoratingly compact, and luminously liquid, Eurydice reframes the ancient myth of ill-fated love to focus not on the bereaved musician but on his dead bride--and on her struggle with love beyond the grave."--San Francisco Chronicle   This volume is the first publication of Sarah Ruhl, "a playwright with a unique comic voice, perspective, and sense of theater" (Variety), who is fast leaving her mark on the American stage. In the award-winning The Clean House--a play of uncommon romance and uncommon comedy--a maid who hates cleaning dreams about creating the perfect joke, while a doctor who treats cancer leaves his heart inside one of his patients. This volume also includes Eurydice, Ruhl's reinvention of the tragic Greek tale of love and loss, Late: A Cowboy Song, and Melancholy Play.   Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House, which has been produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Her play Eurydice has been produced at Madison Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.