Sarah Ruhl's version of the Eurydice myth begins as a fable. Nicole Swahn, the childishly enthusiastic and simple-minded Eurydice, frolics at the beach with Bastion Carboni as her beau, the music geek Orpheus. They're on their way to an unreflecting storybook wedding. Little matter that she has no comprehension of the music in his head and apparently no head for her own history.
In part, because she's not getting the mail. We learn that Eurydice's father, a deceased man without a name, has been writing letters to her from the underworld. A bit of a simple dreamer himself, he has somehow proven resistant to the anesthetic properties of the River Lethe. Dad remembers her; he remembers and enacts his dreams of squiring her to her wedding. He even remembers how to read and to write, aptitudes that are supposed to drop away in the shades. His epistles, trusted to the worms for delivery, are regularly intercepted by a smirking, swaggering Marc Balester.
This is an imaginative turn on the ancient myth. By tradition, Orpheus with his musical gift is the protagonist of the story, charming his way into the afterlife and almost retrieving his wife. Ruhl's reformulation is a curious mash-up of myth, coming-of-age fable and naive Christian tale-telling. Concentrating on the father-daughter relation, she is exploring the persistence of memory and of human attachment in the face of death.
Received directly from Different Stages: images by Brett Brookshire
for
Eurydice a dramatic comedy by Sarah Ruhl
performances January 8 – 30, 2009
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. The City Theater, 3823 Airport Blvd., Ste. D. (map)
Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30 Experience the fantastic and hallucinatory myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine, Eurydice. Eurydice journeys through the jaws of death into the Underworld where she happily reunites with her father who teaches her about love, loss and the pleasures and pains of memory. There, washed in the river of forgetfulness, she struggles to remember her lost love.
When Orpheus returns to rescue her, she must decide whether to stay with her beloved father or return to the land of the living.
Things become more complicated when the malevolent Lord of the Underworld wants Eurydice for his bride, and a chorus of stones try to coerce her into conforming to the rigid rules of the Underworld. With humor, contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story.
Directed by Karen Jambon (Miss Witherspoon) Eurydice features Nicole Swahn (An Inspector Calls) as the title character. Bastion Carboni (Poison Apple Initiative) plays the musician Orpheus. Norman Blumensaadt (A Number) is Eurydice’s father, and Marc Balester (A Number) is the Lord of the Underworld. Betsy McCann (Oceana), Jonathan Blackwell (Oceana), and Miriam Rubin (The Shadow Box) are the chorus of stones.
Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.. Tickets are Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, and $30.
Under the artistic direction of Norman Blumensaadt, Different Stages and its predecessor the Small Potatoes Theatre Company have furnished Austin Theatre with a considerable library of stage work. The back page of the program for An Inspector Calls lists 109 productions the company has brought to the boards since 1981.
Different Stages has given the city a good dose of the classics and a wide array of works from the British and European stages. The company has often reached back decades in the English-speaking repertoire to present twentieth century works unlikely to be offered by other enterprises in town. For example, their production last year of Shaw's Getting Married was a fine example of Blumensaadt's taste, dedication and success as a curator.
J.B. Priestly's An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945. It recounts a story set in 1912 urban Britain. It's a moral fable with an intrigue that inexorably and progressively reveals the hypocrisy of each member and associate of a wealthy capitalist family. Priestly gives the story a twist of the supernatural, but it' essentially a piece preaching to the British middle class about the wickedness of earlier capitalist generations' exploitation of the poor.
The first two productions of An Inspector Calls were in Moscow. The 1946 London production featured Ralph Richardson as the ominous Inspector Goole, Margaret Leighton as ingenue Sheila Birling, and Alec Guiness as her brother Eric. Goole's berating of the non-aristocratic capitalists touched sensibilities in post-war Britain.
Different Stages closes its 2008–2009 season with J.B. Priestley's haunting thriller
An Inspector Calls
Set in 1912 in Edwardian England, the story begins when a mysterious police Inspector calls unexpectedly on a prosperous family. Their peaceful dinner party is shattered by his investigation into the death of a young woman. Under the Inspector's relentless interrogation, secret after secret is revealed, leading to an unexpected and eerie conclusion.
Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Getting Married), An Inspector Calls features Garry Peters (Molly Sweeney), as the inspector.
Sam Z. Damon (The Tempest) and Paula Gilbert (Suddenly Last Summer) play the industrialist and his wife. Nicole Swahn (Amadeus) and Andy Smith (Red Cans) play their daughter and son. Trey Deason (Faster than the Speed of Light) plays the daughter's fiancé.
Join us on July 4 for an ice and fire special – ice cream and sparklers!
EXTRA
Click here or on image below to view photos by Bret Brookshire
