A naked display of emotion between two lovers can be touching or sickening, depending on how it’s portrayed. The authenticity and the depth of the characters in “Eurydice” make it easy for the actors to play the heartstrings, hitting all the right notes.
The UNM Student Theatre Organization SCRAP’s production of the Greek myth as rewritten by Sarah Ruhl lends a light-hearted tone to death by getting rid of messy memories of loved ones. According to the myth, Eurydice is a nymph who is married to the legendary musician Orpheus.
Eurydice dies on their wedding day and Orpheus enters the underworld to save her. He strikes a deal with Hades and is allowed to bring Eurydice back on the condition that he walk in front of her and not look back. However, he does look back and she returns to the underworld.
The underworld Ruhl creates is ruled by three Stones, catty ladies with distaste for emotion. The Lord of the Underworld is played by Kevin O’Boyle. His twisted, darkly humorous portrayal is similar to the “Family Guy” character Stewie Griffin. He even makes stage entrances on a tricycle, accompanied by heavy-metal music.
Carly Moses plays a lovable Eurydice, both in relation to her slightly awkward but well-meaning father, played by Mason Tuck, and absent-minded Orpheus, played by Caedmon Holland.
The dialogue between the lovers is rushed a bit at first, but Orpheus’ heart-warming marriage proposal is a bright spot. The dialogue is cutesy, as new lovers tend to be, and the actors run the risk of sounding phony. Holland and Moses pull it off though, playing an innocently intimate couple comfortable in each other’s presence.
Tuck’s performance begs the question if the father’s awkwardness is his fault or the result of the father being dead. Once souls reach the underworld, they are not the same people. As the play goes on, it seems more likely that he is a father-type as unconventional as the underworld itself.
Most strange is the language of the Stones, which doesn’t even seem as if Ruhl was trying to be out-there when she wrote the play. It’s easy to imagine this is the most natural way to exist after death because the actors commit totally to their parts.
Because she’s lost her memory, Eurydice casts her father in the role of servant and companion in her new life after death. Ruhl paints an endearing portrait of a gentle man who would give anything to see his daughter happy.
Tuck’s hesitant, stumbling way of speaking adds dimension to the character because it falls genuinely in line with his demeanor.
For the audience as well as her father, it is hard to see Eurydice follow Orpheus, after which he asks the Stones how he can remember to forget.
Even if the story is familiar, the modern humor and surrealism make Ruhl’s version a refreshing rehash. The end is like the rain that falls in the elevator to the underworld. Like the departing souls, the audience leaves a sunnier time to be struck by sorrow.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“Eurydice”
By Sarah Ruhl
Theatre X, Popejoy Hall
Runs through March 17
Thursday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
$12 general admission
$10 faculty and seniors
$8 staff and students
