Eurydice, written by Sarah Ruhl in 2004, is a modern reinterpretation of the Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Brought to life for this year’s MIFTAs season, the cast and creative team delivered a lively, beautiful, and deeply emotional take on this classic tale.
The directorial vision of this production is clear: from the design, to the staging, to the acting, what directors Martha Pardue and Hattie Wood deliver is an ethereal, mystical tragedy, untethered by era or genre. When entering the theatre, we are presented with a traverse stage, making great use of the slightly limited space that the SU theatre affords. As well as allowing for more space, the staging is utilised thematically throughout, with one end representing the underworld and the other embodying the land of the living, highlighted too through the production’s use of lighting.
This symbolism is used perhaps most effectively in the moment where Eurydice (Merle Fraser) begins follows Orpheus (Harry Wopat) out of the underworld. Eurydice’s journey across the length of the stage embodies the way she traverses both the world of the living and the dead throughout the play, and her decision to call out his name, startling him into turning around, marks her pledge to the underworld and her banishment to one end of the stage.
The play flits around tonally, moving between comedy and tragedy freely, especially in the second act. Notably, the juxtaposition of the appearance of the Lord of the Underworld (Euan Krasinski) on a tricycle makes for excellent comic relief. However, sudden moments of comedy amongst the deeply tragic narrative personally left me with slight whiplash — while this likely is an unavoidable feature of the text, it might have been possible to clarify comedic moments from dramatic and avoid any tonal uncertainty.
The cast of Eurydice is incredibly strong — the actors match each others’ style and capability, each having their moments without being overshadowed. The chemistry between Fraser’s Eurydice and Wopat’s Orpheus in the opening of the play is the foundation of their tragic arc. As a pair they are playful and unburdened; Fraser’s performance throughout is especially weightless, with a childlike glimmer. Fraser’s characterisation creates great contrast between Eurdice’s naivety and the burdened sadness of the other characters, while Wopat’s complex and troubled portrayal of Orpheus seeded his descent into darkness in act two as he grapples with the loss of Eurydice.
The play’s bittersweet, melancholic tone is contributed to hugely by Larkin Armstrong as Eurydice’s father. His earnestness and deep, unconditional love for Eurydice is felt throughout all his time on stage, with his bubbly and sincere delivery creating a real family resemblance between the two. Euan Krasinski played both the Nasty, Interesting Man, and the Lord of the Underworld, and while both characters share a sinister energy, Krasinski is able to characterise them completely differently, playing the first character with gathered, calculated evil, and the second with manic, ludicrous comedy. His threatening demeanour introduces real fear for Eurydice and drives the tension of their dynamic extremely well.
Pardue and Wood utilise the ensemble of Big, Small, and Loud Stones (Summer Lagan, Chloe Cohen, and Bea Page respectively) excellently, with their movement being well choreographed and their ability to appear from and disappear into the shadows aiding their otherworldly presence. The trio work with great synchronicity, passing dialogue between each other rapidly in a manner akin to the Macbeth witches. They also have comedic moments, with Lagan especially delivering some particularly ludicrous lines with absolute conviction. Despite spending less time on stage than the rest of the cast, the Stones are memorable and a key part of the atmospheric fabric of the play.
One of the great merits of Eurydice is its cohesive design choices. In the Underworld, Eurydice and her father draw on the floor with chalk as he teaches her language again. The evocation of childhood in the visual of the pair sitting on the floor, drawing and playing, is particularly powerful as Eurydice is reduced to a childlike state, back with her father who is teaching her to navigate English. The motif of childhood is expanded on through the use of Krasinski’s tricycle and even the novelty of having a book descend from the ceiling through a rope pulley.
The directors opt to have Fraser and Armstrong remain onstage during the interval, continuing the chalk tapestry on the stage. While this can be a slightly gimmicky device when used without rhyme or reason, it feels thought-through and purposeful here. While the audience leave, go to the bar and talk in the interval, Eurydice and her father remain trapped in the underworld, blissfully unaware of any other goings-on, while they draw and connect with one another.
These foundations of the relationships in the story are laid perfectly to deliver an utterly devastating ending. Armstrong plays the quiet devastation of a father letting his daughter go to never see her again perfectly, evoking real heartbreak in his faltering smiles. The lasting image of two relationships cruelly torn apart, one between lovers and one between a father and daughter, is not easy to forget.
