Jason Furman's Reviews > Eurydice

A beautiful retelling of the story of Eurydice--mostly from Eurydice's perspective. Like The Trojan Women (which I read right before it) it is surreal, but unlike The Trojan Women it has its own internal logic, rules and the surrealism adds to the emotional power and profundity of the story.

The biggest thing Sarah Ruhl introduces into the story is Eurydice's relationship with her father. At first he is dead, she is alive, and he is trying to write her letters she never gets. Then she is dead, at first like all dead people she forgets everything but he brings back her memories, ability to read and more making a tender reunion in the underworld. But then in the end when she is cast back both her father and her, like everyone else, lose their memories, their language, and their relationship to each other again. All of it was very moving about lost loved ones, communicating with them and also about forgetting.

The love story between Orpheus and Eurydice is also beautiful, with him sharing music, tying a string around her ring finger, and lots of short lines of mutual understanding and then speaking/singing together.

I would really to love to see this play, either done in a stark minimalist way that let's one enjoy the language or in a more elaborate production that fully depicts things like the elevator with rain inside on the way to the underworld.