In life, Eurydice loves books, and Orpheus is a great musician. One of the few heroines who dies twice, she falls to the underworld on her wedding day. In death, she reunites with her father and remembers her life again. Les Waters directs an innovative reimagining of one of Sarah Ruhl’s most beloved plays, inspired by a classic myth.
The familiarity of it all is crucial to the thing. Given the myth, or the number of times you might’ve seen it brought to life, you know the final turn is coming, though that never makes it any less painful. And it’s bracing when Ruhl tightens her lens and has the play become suddenly specific — those instructions Eurydice’s father recites, for instance, direct you to her own grandparents’ former home. For all its whimsy, the play centers on something hard and insoluble: that we’ll lose each other, from one generation to the next, and that we’ll always come back to thinking of the dead, and wishing we listened more.
Ruhl's riff leans into surrealism, symbolism, dark humor and poetry as the title character is torn between husband and father, romance and grief, the living and the dead. The production includes moving moments and breathtaking visuals... Her Eurydice is a reimagined remembrance of a story we feel compelled to revisit over and over, even once we’ve learned the dangers of looking back.
| 2007 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Signature Theatre Off-Broadway Revival Production Off-Broadway |
Videos