“EURYDICE”: Theatre Intime has staged “Eurydice.” Written by Sarah Ruhl and directed by Lucy Shea, the play was presented November 15-17 at the Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: After a fatal accident, Eurydice (Melanie Garcia, right) arrives in the underworld and encounters her Father (Martin Brennan, left), who predeceased her. (Photo by Elena Milliken)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

According to the Greek myth, Eurydice — a nymph and, according to some versions, the daughter of Apollo — fell in love with Orpheus, who was said to be the son of the muse Calliope. Orpheus “was gifted with such extraordinary musical skills that even trees and rocks danced,” notes Britannica.com.

Fleeing to avoid the unwanted advances of Aristaeus, Eurydice was fatally bitten by a snake. Orpheus traveled to the underworld and charmed Hades with his music. Hades agreed to release Eurydice on one condition: “Orpheus and Eurydice were forbidden to look back while they were in the land of the dead.” Orpheus was unable to resist looking to see if Eurydice was following him, and she returned to the underworld forever.

With Eurydice (2003) playwright Sarah Ruhl transplants the legend to the mid-20th century. (An exact time is unspecified, but in the opening scene the script requests swimming “outfits from the 1950s”). The general events of the myth are left intact, but details are changed and, as the title suggests, the play centers the heroine.

The choice of the phrase “look back” in the Britannica.com entry is interesting when juxtaposed against Ruhl’s version. Eurydice develops the myth’s themes of grief into a meditation on a lack of fulfillment or resolution before loss, introducing a concept of a dead loved one trying to contact and care for a survivor.

In an interview with the Metropolitan Opera, Ruhl states that the play was written for her father, who died of cancer when the playwright was 20. This is reflected by the addition of a character: Eurydice’s late father (identified only as “Father”), who died when she was young, and who attempts to write to his daughter from the underworld (and guides her once she arrives there).

Eurydice received its premiere at Madison Repertory Theatre in 2003. (It is interesting to note that the play’s debut is two years after 9/11, when its exploration of loss obviously was painfully relevant.) The published script’s list of subsequent venues for staged readings includes McCarter Theatre.

Princeton University’s student-run Theatre Intime has presented Eurydice. Directed by Lucy Shea, the staging realizes the title character’s journey with some strong performances (including those of two musicians) and detailed production design.

Eurydice opens with a scene on a beach, which palpably is too idyllic to last. Eurydice (portrayed by Melanie Garcia) and Orpheus (Pixley Marquardt) are in love; Orpheus invents a song for Eurydice, and by the end of the scene, proposes marriage.

Kristen Tan’s sound design for the scene is skillful, giving the illusion that seagulls are flying from one side of the stage to the other. Tan also composes the production’s contemplative incidental music, smoothly and sensitively performed by cellist Rowan Johnson and harpist Kate Andrews.

From the underworld, Father (infused with gentle, debonair earnestness by Martin Brennan) writes Eurydice a letter for her wedding day. Generally he approves of Orpheus (“He seems like a serious young man; I understand he’s a musician”). He reveals that he is one of very few dead people who still can read and write, and there could be consequences if his ability is discovered.

At their wedding party Eurydice and Orpheus dance to “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me).” The choice of this 1942 song  — about being faithful until a romantic partner returns from duty in the armed forces — both supports a mid-20th century time setting and establishes a sense of imminent separation.

Eurydice encounters a Nasty Interesting Man (Jamie Barnett), Ruhl’s version of Aristaeus, who somehow has Father’s letter. Having reluctantly accompanied the Man to his apartment (in one of the building’s highest floors) to receive the note, Eurydice falls to her death while trying to leave.

Lighting Designer Le’Naya Wilkerson punctuates Eurydice’s journey to the underworld with artfully chaotic flashes of light. Following the script’s request, Set Designer Sahaf Chowdhury lets an old-fashioned elevator (whose door appears to be a shower curtain) represent the underworld. On either side of the “door” are flowers and a (mostly) white wall, perhaps symbolizing the ill-fated wedding.

Upon arriving Eurydice is disoriented — she thinks she is in a hotel — and finds that she is unable to communicate (language as we know it is useless). Her arrival and subsequent events are greeted with curiosity, disdain, and (rare) sympathy by a trio of Stones.

The Stones seem to fill two roles. The first is that of a Greek chorus; the second is an iteration of the Furies (the goddesses of vengeance), who also were characterized by a group of three.

All three actors playing the Stones — Madelyn Smoyer (Loud Stone), Harper Vance (Little Stone), and Nell Marcus (Big Stone) — are entertainingly ornery, especially in their early scenes. Ruhl likens the characters to “nasty children at a birthday party.” This production’s actors tend to deliver the lines more as condescending popular students in a teen comedy, which also is effective.

Much of the Stones’ dialogue suggests that they represent the forces in our culture that discourage overt personal attachment or expressions of emotion. (They discourage crying, for example, even though they admit that Orpheus’ music makes them do just that.)

Their (suitably grey) clothes, with which Costume Designer Emma Schrier (assisted by Sophia Harrison Bregman) outfits them, reinforce this. Their blazers suggest an unsympathetic boss (an archetype ubiquitous in films) who requires employees to work extra hours on a company project instead of going home to their families.

Father helps Eurydice become acclimated to the underworld — becoming the supportive mentor that his death prevented him from being in Eurydice’s lifetime. Garcia and Brennan are outstanding in their respective roles. All of their scenes together are moving, and Brennen’s soothing delivery of Father’s dialogue provides the needed contrast to that of the Stones.

Garcia successfully conveys the three main legs of Eurydice’s journey: youthful infatuation and lack of life experience (mixed with subconscious grief for Father); disorientation when she arrives in the underworld, as well as doubt and mixed feelings when she tries to leave it; and comparative experience and assuredness when she returns to the underworld. (Toward the end, as Eurydice accepts her fate, she writes a letter.)

Marquardt is at her best when portraying Orpheus’ divided attention between passion for Eurydice and obsession with music (the young lovers’ first scene together has the right mixture of passion and the awkward clashing of two disparate personalities). Although a few too many of her line readings have a similar brusque tone, she successfully captures Orpheus’ determination to find Eurydice at any cost.

Eventually we meet the play’s Hades figure: an impish, propeller beanie-wearing Child (played by Barnett, who also portrays the Nasty Interesting Man — and the two roles possibly are iterations of the same character). Barnett’s speech and movements somewhat recall the sinister Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Shea’s staging makes effective use of the space, especially during the scene in which Eurydice fails to escape from the underworld. The actors move down the aisles, just as they did when their characters were happily swimming at the beach in the opening scene – except this time, they end up on opposite sides of the theater, emphasizing the distance (between the realms of the living and the dead) that will now separate them.

Ruhl’s choice to make the Hades figure into a child is an interesting one. It is tempting to theorize that the primary antagonist is a child because a part of Eurydice never finished growing up without her father (the only parental figure mentioned or onstage) to guide her to adulthood.

As such, Eurydice seems to be a meditation on the extent to which lack of resolution in our past relationships affects our present ones. The tragedy of the play is that to heal from the loss of her father, Eurydice has to lose her lover. The success of Theatre Intime’s production is marked by its convincing portrayal of both Eurydice’s loss of Orpheus and her cathartic journey.

For information about Theatre Intime’s upcoming productions, visit theatreintime.org.