Not a single Grecian pillar or toga-clad actor pollutes the Artists Community Theater production of “Eurydice,” opening Thursday at the historic Henry Strater Theatre in Durango’s Strater Hotel.
Instead, theater-goers can lose themselves in an imaginary ocean, a room made of pieces of dangling string, an elevator inside which it rains, and a boundless and desolate underworld inhabited by shouting rocks and a tricycle-riding man-child who turns out to be Hades.
American poet-turned-playwright Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 play retells the classical Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice from Eurydice’s point of view, focusing on her time in the underworld before Orpheus shows up to reclaim her.
The play is full of surprises, and like its characters who navigate the River Lethe between the worlds of the living and dead, it crosses all sorts of boundaries.
“It is neither pure comedy, nor drama, but a little bit of both,” promises director Erin O’Connor.
The first time O’Connor saw “Eurydice,” she was still in high school. The play made a big impression on the budding actress and theater director, and when she saw it again as a college student at a theater festival in Los Angeles, she was even more captivated.
So, it’s no surprise that O’Connor, now 23 and recently graduated from Fort Lewis College, picked “Eurydice” for her post-graduate directing debut with the Artists Community Theater, a nonprofit company founded by Durango playwright and director Jeffrey Deitch that offers aspiring performers and directors new opportunities to develop their craft in the local theater community.
O’Connor had to pitch the play to Deitch a couple of times before convincing him to come on board as its producer.
“He was definitely more interested in doing the kind of play that Durango has seen a bit more of,” she said, something with a storyline that unfolds in living rooms and kitchens, perhaps, instead of rainy elevators and rooms made of string. “But I’m a young idealist, and I said we should do something we love.”
Ultimately, Deitch agreed.
“We thought this play was a good choice for many reasons,” he said. “It is the work of a young playwright who has adapted an ancient myth and set it in modern times – and it’s the kind of play that we don’t often see here in this area.”
Ancient myth, modern touch
Ruhl’s play has seen tremendous success since making its debut in 2003.
“She brings her poetry to her scripts,” Deitch said. “Her writing is wonderfully lyrical.”
As the familiar Greek myth goes, Eurydice dies on her wedding day and goes down to the underworld. Her husband, Orpheus, makes a deal with Hades, the God of the Underworld, to retrieve her, but if they look at each other on their journey out of the Underworld, the deal is off, and she has to stay there.
To this storyline, Ruhl has given modern, often funny touches, using the same premise of a young couple getting married but playing with the circumstances under which Eurydice dies and what happens after.
In Ruhl’s play, in the Underworld, she meets up with her long-dead father, whom she comes to know and for whom she develops a love that she never had the opportunity to experience when she was alive.
“So when Orpheus does his deal with Hades, and it’s time for her to leave the Underworld, she is excited but conflicted,” Deitch said.
What happens next, as the play stalks toward its surprising climax, is tragic, yet mysteriously tender.
“It is a play about relationships, as much as a retelling of the Greek myth,” Deitch said. And, he emphasized, “It’s G-rated, family entertainment.”
O’Connor agreed, adding that although “being dead” is a major theme, “It’s not in a scary way. The ancient Greeks looked at death as a part of life,” she explained. “Mostly, it’s a play about these characters. It washes away expectations of what a Greek tragedy should be.”
A set and cast to die for
Ruhl allows great leeway in her play for producers to imagine and realize the set according to their own visions. In ACT’s version, the whole first act is done in front of the curtain with no set at all, leaving the audience to wonder, “What are we in for?”
As Act II opens, the curtain draws back to reveal the Underworld.
“We tried to achieve something you can’t really describe in words – there is a certain eeriness, a desolation, with branches lying about and rocks and mist,” Deitch said. “In Greek mythology, there is no sense of condemnation about the Underworld; this is not a Christian concept of hell, but there is a certain emptiness about it.” (That is, until Eurydice steps out from her stormy elevator.)
ACT’s production of “Eurydice” features brilliant characterizations and a cast that spans generations – from Deitch, a retired trial attorney turned local community theater maven who plays the role of Eurydice’s father, to Durango teens Jayci Aragon and Molly Christensen, who play the animated stones that make up the chorus in the Underworld.
Also gracing the stage are FLC theater students Molly Quinn and Avery Scott playing Eurydice and Orpheus, respectively, and rookie actor Andrew Hook making his theater debut as Hades.
Of the six cast members, Hook has the broadest range to portray on stage, playing two characters that are flip sides of the same persona. The “Nasty, Interesting Man” (as Ruhl identifies him in the script) who leads Eurydice to her death in Act I is “very smooth, like an eel, or a fox,” O’Connor said.
In Act II, Hook portrays the deceptively childlike Lord of the Underworld. O’Connor marvels at how he has worked to inhabit this character, mastering “how kids hold themselves and are physically present. He has taken that to a beautiful level,” O’Connor said. “To see a great big, bulky beast of a guy who gets to play a little kid is interesting, funny at times, eery and off-putting.”
“Eurydice” may be different than what Durango audiences are used to, but, O’Connor said, “it’s not so different. I think any person that likes live performance will love this play. It’s such a simple, gorgeous story. It’s been around for 2,000 years, and it will never go away. Contemporizing it and bringing it to Durango is important.”
Even more important, she said, is that people come to see the play.
“We are a community that celebrates art and theater – which is all the more reason to see this beautiful little story. There are moments that are sweet, for sure, and moments that are tragic.”
If you go
“Eurydice,” a play by Sarah Ruhl, is presented by the Artists Community Theater at the historic Henry Strater Theatre at Durango’s Strater Hotel.
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and May 15-17.
Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for students and seniors 65 and older.
Tickets can be purchased at the Durango Welcome Center, 802 Main Ave., 247-7657. They also are available online at www.HenryStraterTheatre.com and at the door.
