THEATER REVIEW: "Eurydice" (★★★) runs through Nov. 9 at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes; Tickets: $20-$48 at 773-871-3000 and www.victorygardens.org. Lee Stark is Eurydice, left, and Jamie Abelson is Orpheus.
If you are getting married any time soon, you might want to take in Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” at the Victory Gardens Theater. And not just for its heroine’s shrewd observation that a wedding is just for a father and a daughter, and will inevitably leave all other parties adrift and afraid.
This beguiling little play manages, all at once, to be a love story, a reckoning of the tough choices love always demands, and a primer on how to deal with the loss of someone you loved so terribly much—be they lover, parent or child.
Unlike some other updated dramatic takes on classical mythology, this 90-minute retelling of the Orpheus myth obeys its own quirky rules, keeps its metaphors manageable and effects a very delightful simplicity. The sourcing myth helps.
Imagine that someone close to you has died. Imagine further that someone has offered to return that person to you, on the condition that you do not look back as you walk away from the afterlife from which you’re pulling her. Would you be able to stop yourself from checking she is there? Doesn’t the very existence of your love require you make sure she’s safe?
Ah, the paradoxes of antiquity. They still give you shivers.
“Eurydice,” the object of a series of rapturous, career-making, East Coast reviews in 2006 following a production at Yale Rep, was seen very early in its life at Piven Theatre, on the then-unknown playwright’s native North Shore. I damned it with faint praise. And while I have various excuses for that review, I surely missed the nascent power of the play. I figured that out a couple of years ago, but the new production at Victory Gardens convinced me again of this play’s honest beauty.
That’s not to say that this is a perfect production. This is one of those shows that need a whimsical environment and the kind of fluid staging that Lookingglass Theatre or the Goodman are known for. There’s certainly the attempt here, in a production team-directed by Sandy Shinner and Jessica Thebus and designed by Dan Ostling. Some of the time it works beautifully. Other times it feels like you’re watching the work of two directors who aren’t quite on the same page. And while I’m generally a huge fan of Ostling’s designs, the appeal of the ugly, brown, pock-marked walls eluded me.
On opening, the show seemed overly jittery and jumpy. Even after a year at the Biograph, Victory Gardens still doesn’t look comfortable from a production management standpoint. That needs fixing, pronto.
But the best scenes here are very powerful. The most emotionally reachable performance comes from the terrific Joe D. Lauck, who plays Eurydice’s father and whose love for his daughter seems to flow out into the theater in great waves. Once she settles down after an overly cutesy first scene, Lee Stark is very appealing in the title role—and has a quirky, Ruhl-like quality that helps when you’re starring in a Ruhl play. Jamie Abelson is an honest, likable Orpheus, albeit one needing a bit more fight. And character actors like Beau O’Reilly and William J. Norris are in fine fettle.
Clearly, everybody in the production understands the play. They just need to settle down and unlock the raw emotions of the text. I’d give it a week or two before you go, but if you’ve not seen “Eurydice,” I wouldn’t miss the chance.
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