Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl

Eurydice runs from March 23 – April 2 2017 at Connecticut Repertory Theater. Here are my Director’s Notes for the program.

Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is written in movements – a poetic symphony of love, loss, memory and rhythm. It is elemental, grounded in earth with two movements set in the Underworld, home of the Stones. If Eurydice is water, Orpheus is air – the musician “too busy listening to his own thoughts.” The Lord of the Underworld is unpredictable fire, appearing as The Nasty Interesting Man and Child. Then there is the Father – Eurydice’s touchstone and her Tree.

The play is an elegy. It is also whimsical and surreal with a nod to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Emotion is heightened, fleeting, childlike and profound. In our production, we honor the humorous contradictions, but also find the string-like connections. We explore the play as a meditation: (dis)harmonious, (off)balanced, influenced by the Japanese tradition of wabi sabi or the aspiration to accept imperfection and transience.

According to Chinese legend, a red thread of fate connects two people who are destined to be together. So it is with our young lovers. In the fragile, early days of their relationship, Eurydice is out of synch with Orpheus’ music. Paradoxically she will find her rhythm at the moment of her greatest loss. She will become reunited with Orpheus in the night sky as the Lyra constellation, reminding us that love transcends time and space. On earth we are left to cope with the tragedy of death, finding solace in the poetic space between the words and notes of music. In silence.

Photo: Sarah Jensen as Eurydice. Credit: Gerry Goodstein