She’s the character who famously dies twice. But her story lives on in a play being staged in Las Vegas.
Eurydice, which opens Friday, February 6, at Super Summer Theatre Studios, centers on the wife of the tragic mythology hero Orpheus. No longer in the narrative shadow of her more well-known husband, playwright Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 version of Eurydice gets to tell her account of the underworld. The play is staged by A Public Fit, known for its socially conscious productions.
Eurydice's co-director and A Public Fit associate producing director, Breon Jenay, chose the work for the creative opportunities it offers, in part because of Ruhl's encouragement to directors staging her play.
"I was immediately taken in by the beauty of the language," Jenay said. "And as I kept reading, I realized it was sort of an open canvas, and that really appealed to me, because I think that gives a director permission to really take a lot of risks, and do something new and creative and wholly their own."
Eurydice explores themes of loss and grief, memory, and the ties that bind—in this case, between Eurydice and her father. Those themes are complemented by the play's dreamlike, surreal, sometimes whimsical visual production.
"I think that at the heart of this story, it's about grief," Jenay said. "But it's about the beauty of grief, because we can't really have grief unless we have love. You can only grieve something that you care for deeply. I think Sarah Ruhl decided to highlight the beauty of the grief. So we wanted to really bring forth the beauty of the text, and the beauty of the world, and the beauty of the actors."
"I think Eurydice, in dealing so beautifully and in some ways starkly with the reality of grief, is an acknowledgement that part of the growing pains of a country, of a community — grief is a huge part of that, and letting go of moments in the past," Kucan said. "That may not be beneficial to a community that's trying very hard to move forward, [but] I think it's important."
Eurydice is the second of three "mainstage" productions — out of a total of seven — in A Public Fit's 12th season, in which Kucan said the company has found much success. "We have — whether by luck, by choice or just by divine providence — been remarkably prescient in what sort of plays we offer. And I think Eurydice is no different."
Breon Jenay co-director, Eurydice and associate producing director, A Public Fit; Joe Kucan, producing director, A Public Fit
