Northwestern University MFA Directing Program, Wallis Theater 2006
By: Sarah Ruhl
Set Designer: Andres LaSalle
Costumes Designer: Robin Rayburn
Light Designer: Steve Sorenson
Sound Designer/Composer: Brett Masteller
Choreography: Chris Van Houton
Dramaturg: Katie Zien
Featuring: Nicole Ripley, Jack Sachs, Chris Bush, Zeke Sulkes, Harry Einhorn, Nathan Drackett, Jamie Poslosky
Program notes: In Rainer Maria Rilke’s interpretation of (what is often called) the Orpheus myth, he renders Eurydice as a woman for whom being dead filled her beyond fulfillment;
She was no longer that woman with blue eyes
who once had echoed through the poet’s songs,
no longer the wide couch’s scent and island,
and that man’s property no longer.
She was already loosened like long hair,
poured out like fallen rain,
shared like a limitless supply.
And when, abruptly,
the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,
with sorrow in his voice: he has turned around-
she could not understand and softly answered,
Who?
If Rilke balances the Orpheus myth by adding Eurydice’s point of view, then Sarah Ruhl turns the whole story upside down. Eurydice asks us to investigate what happens when Eurydice is more than just an object that is lost, found, and then lost again. What if Eurydice is somehow accountable for Orpheus’s famous turn? What if her “second death” is not a careless mistake but rather a decisive act on Eurydice’s part? The result is that we are left to uncover why, when given the choice, would anyone choose to die twice.
