The beloved myth of Orpheus and Eurydice was retold in Mitchell Theatre with “Eurydice.”
Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 play hit the Taylor stage, directed by Tracy Manning, on Feb. 20. The show reimagines the classic tale from the perspective of Eurydice, exploring themes of grief, love and loss.
The original tale depicts Orpheus’s journey to the underworld to find Eurydice, his wife. In the original story, Orpheus uses his music to charm Hades into letting Eurydice return, provided Orpheus does not look back as they leave, which would result in losing Eurydice forever.
In “Eurydice,” she loses her memories and is united in the underworld with her deceased father. When Orpheus finds her, she is met with an ultimatum: She must choose to either return with Orpheus or remain with her father.
The play centers around grief, Hannah Wylie, a senior theatre and English education major, intimacy coordinator and actress for Loud Stone, said.
“(Ruhl) is processing and allowing Eurydice to process loving two people and choosing,” Wylie said. “Also, what life means and what it means to love other people and to be remembered.”
The characters experience grief in different ways, she said. The play explores a wide scope of what grief can look like for different people.
It also explores personhood as Eurydice finds herself without her memories, Heidi Gibson, a sophomore environmental science major and assistant stage manager, said.
“What are you without your memories and your relationships?” Gibson said. “I think a big thing that I always take away from it is just how your connections to both people you’re with now and the people who you have loved and who have died or left you in other ways, how that is who you are as a person.”
The cast employed an acting method for the show developed by Michael Chekhov. The method involves an actor translating their character’s core desire into a symbolic physical action or core gesture. Each actor also adopted an action phrase for how their character interacts with the world.
The cast spent extensive time studying, practicing the method and determining the core gestures of their characters.
Loud Stone's core gesture is a deep squat, Wylie said.
“That’s just how I found Loud Stone to exist in the world,” Wylie said. “We’ve found individual, specific gestures and action phrases that help us step into the play, and that really informs the types of choices we make throughout the play as well.”
“Eurydice” offers strong relatability due to its themes of grief and humanity, Gibson said. It explores feelings that most people have felt at some time in their lives.
The play highlights the importance of memories with loved ones and appreciating the time one has with them, she said.
“It’s just a beautiful story, and it has pretty universal appeal, because there are universal experiences of losing the people you love and not wanting to let go,” Eva Reitzig, a senior theatre arts major and assistant director and dramaturg, said. “So I think it’s something very relatable.”
The show will run in Mitchell Theatre from Feb. 27 to March 1. Tickets are available for purchase online or at the box office.
