The IDS Production of Ruhl's "Eurydice" is No Tragedy

If tragic Greek myths have never been much your thing, Independent Drama Society’s new take on “Eurydice” might provide you with an unexpected portal for appreciation.

The production opened last Friday and will run through next weekend.  And while you won’t necessarily have to squint to see the mythical story at its root, rest assured, you’ve never seen it through this particular lens before. Call it part Greek tragedy, part dramatic improv with a touch of Fellini-inspired surrealism.

“That’s actually an important part of IDS’ mission,” said the theater company’s Director of Marketing, Christine Toohey, during the cast ‘talk-back’ after Sunday’s matinee. “The idea is to take plays that people know and present them in a different context – to very purposefully not tell the same story that’s already been told.”

Ambitious and maybe just a tad bizarre, this new millennium “Eurydice” is a blend of three perspectives (not including those brought in by the actors themselves): the original myth, innovative playwright Sarah Ruhl’s take on it, and Director Lindsay Eagle’s IDS-specific tweaks.

In the original Myth of Orpheus, Eurydice marries Orpheus but is lured into danger on her wedding day by a satyr. Her resulting death is usually attributed to a serpent’s bite. The rest of the plot revolves around Orpheus’ inconsolable grief at the loss of his new bride and his quest to bring her back to life, which leads him into ‘the underworld’ – a classically Greek notion of where people go when they die.

Ruhl shifts the viewpoint of the story from that of Orpheus (played by Greg Nussen) to Eurydice herself (played by Annie Winneg and pronounced, for the record, 'yer-eee-duh-see') and complicates matters by introducing the character of Eurydice’s father, movingly played here by Cliff Blake; it's a role that doesn’t exist in the original story. Father and daughter are reunited post-mortem and appear to be stuck in a sort of purgatory: although no longer amongst the living, they aren't able to rest with the dead, either. The additional tension thickens the plot through the pull of the worlds above and below them, not to mention the pull between a woman and the love of her father versus that of her lover.

Eagle’s direction pushes the envelope even further by introducing the element of clowning. Instead of Ruhl’s three underworld stones—think of them as a Welcome Wagon committee appointed to help you adjust to being dead—Eagle cast a total of 10. Collectively they comprise a clowning Greek chorus. The resulting effect puts a circus-like-spin on the play… bizarro-world “Eurydice,” if you will, complete with impressive acrobatics.

Actually, the clowning stones create some pre-show hilarity by milling around before the curtain officially goes up, and it projects a lasting tone of amusement… it also makes for a sharper contrast with the play's heavier moments, of which there are quite a few. The alternating light and dark in this production vastly widens the emotional scope of the story--it becomes much more than just another tragic myth.

“There’s definitely some humor in the way that Sarah Ruhl writes tragedy,” Eagle said. “In the script it said the stones ‘might behave like nasty children at a birthday party’ but otherwise we had a blank slate.”

During the talk-back, choreographer Naomi Bennett spoke about helping the chorus of clowns get acclimated.

“The first few rehearsals were really clown-only workshops,” she explained. “They needed time to discover their own clown characters, which we achieved through a series of games. In a way, they were tricked into finding that clown personality within them.”

Sierra Kagen, who played the Loud Stone (she bellows) wasn’t prepared for game day.

“I was in a bad mood the day we went into this and it bled into everything I did during the initial workshops,” Kagen said with good-natured humor. “Once the personalities were set, we weren’t allowed to change them. So, I got stuck with a negative personality stone. It was challenging since so much of the role was improvisational and yet I felt completely out of control of my choices.”

With the overall idiosyncratic treatment of the story, Eagle admits she periodically became concerned about maintaining coherence.

“There were a couple moments in the rehearsal process where I thought to myself ‘I really hope this comes across.’ But when things are being discovered and developing organically, it can be hard to envision what the end will look like.”

Lucky for all involved, the whole of IDS' "Eurydice" turns out to be greater than the mere sum of its parts.

Buy Tickets for EURYDICE, directed by Lindsay Eagle, April 22-30, 2011 at The Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Black Box Theater.