Alliance Theatre Reviewers Blog

Eurydice- One of the Best Shows of the Season. - By Shana Basnight

Please go see Eurydice at the Alliance. It is showing until April 13. Eurydice is a wonderfully written, extremely well-performed unique production. I loved every moment of the show and I was distraught when the play ended. After you finish reading the rest of this review, please call your closest friends and family members and purchase tickets to the show. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

I adored Eurydice, written by the incredibly talented Ms. Sarah Ruhl, because its a great love story. It shows the passionate love between newlyweds and the unbreakable bond between a father and a daughter. The play masterfully converts a Greek mythology into a modern-day comical story that maintains the humor while providing the serious thought provoking themes. If you need one more compelling reason to go see the play, please go for The Stones and The Lord of the Underworld. The Lord or the Underworld was definitely my favorite character, as he reminded me of another one of my favorite movies, The Waterboy.

Hopefully you are making plans to go see this show. Just in case you need a quick reminder of the reasons why you absolutely cannot miss the performance of Eurydice, here are my top three reasons. 3) It is sincerely entertaining. You can easily relate to the characters and they are funny. Did I mention the Lord of the Underworld? 2) It is fresh, modern, and hip. You will forget that you are watching a Greek mythology story. 1) The Alliance knows great theater and brings the best shows to Atlanta (period).

The Lord of Death Wears Knee Socks by Amy Lighthill

Since sooner or later, and likely it’ll seem sooner, you’ll be permanently vacationing in the Underworld, you ought to wander down into the bowels of the Alliance and enjoy Sarah Ruhl’s vision of what it’s going to be like down there. According to her, it’s a grey, lonely place where you can neither sleep nor remember, a kind of eternal Alzheimer’s.

But some lovers can continue to communicate between the worlds of the living and the dead, via worm or invisible mailbox, and, if the love is strong enough and the River Styx goes undrunk, even two dead folks can enjoy each other’s company forever. This funny and poignant version of the Greek myth is true to the original in one respect, however. Tragedy is its middle name, and a honeymoon in the Magic Kingdom it’s not.

 

What most of us recall about the original story is the literally supernatural power of lyre-player Orpheus’s love for his bride-for-a-day, Eurydice. When she dies on their wedding day, he follows her, grief-stricken, below the earth to beg for her return. His musicianship (which, strangely, goes largely unrevealed here) enchants the Underworlders, and he is granted his wish, as long as he does not turn to look at his bride on their trek aboveboard. Naturally, he fails, since we’re in the land of Chronos, who ate all his own kids rather than be felled by one as predicted by the soothsayers. When Orpheus steals a glance at his beloved, she vanishes forever, and everybody cries.

 

In Ruhl’s version, Eurydice is a Junior Miss, adored by all men. As the play began, her fey mannerisms and self-conscious baby-girl demands seemed cloying. As the play went on, though, she grew on me-- she became more genuine after death. Her ambivalence toward her spouse, and her relationship with her dead father, seemed more Oedipal than Orpheal. “Weddings are for daughters and fathers. That’s when they stop being married to each other,” she tells the audience, almost cheerfully. This added element layered a significant level of creepiness over the more obvious mourning for her husband. Not for nothing do three swords impale the tattoo heart on the program cover. 

The engulfing love this father felt for his child was heartbreakingly rendered by our own venerable stage veteran, Chris Keyser. He had me in tears ten minutes in, when he described how he wanted to be at Eurydice’s wedding, did a solemn, tearful, joyous little wedding march down the aisle alone, then dropped the missive into the ‘letter box’ with palpably rueful love. When Eurydice arrives in the drippy basement of an underworld (magnificently rendered by stage designer Kat Conley),  forgetting most of everything, he agrees he’s the valet, and ever so tenderly, he builds her a room to rest in, out of a ball of string. Would that every child rested in such devotion.

Ruhl’s play is both childlike and profoundly adult. She has concocted a sweet/sour tale of love, loss and memory’s fragile power to bind us together. Pack your (empty) bag for the next world and check in—for 90 minutes, at least.

 

 

 

"Eurydice"

"EURYDICE"

By

Wendell Barnes

Water, water everywhere, and some is there to drink!  Sarah Ruhl’s magnificent take on the Orpheus and Eurydice legend, named for the title female character this time, was handled beautifully and movingly in a joint production with the

Alliance

and the Georgia Shakespeare Festival.  The audience quickly realized that they were in the hands of a master director, witnessing Richard Garner’s flawless blocking in this journey through the underworld and various other locations.  Kat Conley’s set design of pipes, valve controls, flowing water and even an elevator that rained inside (!) beautifully evoked the coldness of the underworld, the freedom of the beach, even the heights of a penthouse apartment and the joys of a wedding reception--water as a recurring theme.  Never have I seen lighting design more effective than that of Justin Townsend:  from Eurydice’s death fall to the open sky of the seashore, the mood was perfectly felt in each case by the audience.  I was transported by this play—moved, entertained and weeping before it was over, as I mourned the plight of Eurydice and her groom.  Miranda Huffman’s costumes, especially those of the Stones, also evoked the spirit of the play.  Ivan Pulinkala was listed as the movement consultant—I list him as the choreographer since much of the movement displayed dance motions to great effect in setting the tempo of the piece.  The cast was also perfect:  Justin Adams and Melinda Helfrich were beautiful and appealing as the young couple, and since Ms. Helfrich had the burden of the show of the show as the title character, she had the audience in tears over her traumatic struggle—an overall amazing performance.  Two of my favorite

Alliance

actors, Neal A. Ghant and Courtney Patterson, along with a new face to me, Paul Hester, stopped the show as the Greek chorus known as the “Stones.”  They were funny, and necessary as they cleaned up the set on more than one occasion.  The stellar Chris Kayser as Father once again proved to the

Alliance

audience that he can play anything, and reminders of Ebenezer were absent here as he movingly presented the father’s heartbroken distress. Andrew Benator’s performance as A Nasty Interesting Man and the Lord of the Underworld was a tour de force and had the audience feeling eerie and laughing out loud at the same time.  I hope to have the opportunity to see “Eurydice” again before the end of the run—it’s the kind of show that you will see different aspects of each time you view it, and it is a brief, intermissionless production that I can assure you that you will not soon forget.  Another triumph of theatre in that magical, ever-changing space called the Hertz!  Do not miss this show!

Review by Jada Genter – Eurydice

     I had a very visceral, very personal reaction to the joint Alliance Theatre/Georgia Shakespeare Company production of Eurydice. My own much-beloved father passed away twenty years ago when I was fifteen. The brilliant script by Sarah Ruhl depicted a healthy, loving father-daughter relationship rarely seen in entertainment today, and the scenes between Eurydice and her father in the Underworld were a mirror of my childhood when I used to beg my father to tell me Famous Daddy Stories. In addition to the inner connection forged between myself and the characters, I had a strong reaction to the production elements themselves.

     The textured, versatile set takes the audience to the sea and to the underworld, through the fires of death (in one of the coolest F/X sequences seen in many a year), and into the hearts of its characters. The Alliance has a recurring water theme running through its season between The Women of Brewster Place, In the Red and Brown Water, and now Eurydice. This most current production uses water both pointedly and poignantly. The water running around the set contains many levels of symbolism, and the reoccurrence of actual water in the production (a rarity in stage plays) made the allegorical meaning that much deeper.

     The actors seemed extremely comfortable with their set, moving in, on and through it with an ease that further emphasized the almost character-like presence of the set. While the titular character was the center of the story, the other six characters all had their moments to shine, and the actors brought them magically to life. The 1950s innocent sensibility was a wise choice for a modern update of the traditional Greek production. Eurydice was fresh and joyful, and her beloved Orpheus seemed real, despite some of the more esoteric aspects of his character. What can I say about Father? He made me miss my own, so long gone. And the Lord of the Underworld nearly stole the show when he came out as a skeazily precocious child. Let us, however, not forget the Stones. The detailed physical affectations and spot-on vocal performances by Neal A Ghant, Paul Hester and Courtney Patterson were reason enough to see the play, as though it needed any more. Let me also add that their costumes were brilliantly conceived and constructed.

     I loved this production. The individual elements were brilliantly realized and came together to form a cohesive, inspiring whole. I was uplifted and I was inspired. What greater compliment can I give?

Eurydice - Maria Surprise

Spring has finally come to Atlanta, and so it is fitting to have a story of young love playing on the Hertz stage at the Alliance Theatre.  Playwright Sarah Ruhl’s modern take on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my favorites of the 2007-08 season.  Everything about this play works for me – the acting, directing, music, lighting, set design – all come together to create pure, elegant poetry.  Movement and rhythm are integral to this performance, and the amazing lighting effects by Justin Townsend are thrilling to behold.  I was mesmerized watching Eurydice’s descent into the underworld; Melinda Helfrich as Eurydice imbues her fall with beauty and grace. 

Don’t be concerned that this play is all about lost lovers and sad laments.  There is plenty of humor, brought forth through the three stones – all expertly played by Neal Ghant, Paul Hester, and Courtney Patterson – as well as the Lord of the Underworld, Andrew Benator, hamming it up nicely for the audience.  Without giving anything away, let me just say that the Lord of the Underworld sure knows how to make an entrance!

Unlike Eurydice and Orpheus, I hope the partnership between the Alliance Theatre and Georgia Shakespeare endures in this world, and continues to bring Atlanta more theatrical works of this caliber.

Hertz Stage -- A Contemporary take on the Classic Myth

Our five Alliance Theatre Reviewers will see Eurydice on Wednesday, March 19, 2008.  Come back to see what they have to say about this emotionally moving play.